A splendid addition to the literature on “third cinema”, this coherent and well-conceptualized collection focuses on a fascinatingly variegated archipelago of films, from popular features like Sugar Cane Alley and The Hard They Come to still-to-be discovered masterpieces like Ava and Gabriel. The writing is excellent throughout, with contributions by Aimé Césaire, Daniel Boukman, Stuart Hall, Maryse Conde, Michaëlle Lafontant-Médard, Jon Stewart and Sylvia Winter. The critical discussion goes far beyond the films themselves to engage contemporary issues of post-coloniality and Afro-diasporic art. The analyses are theoretically sophisticated and never fall to provide historical contextualization for the films under discussion. The publication of this volume is especially opportune at the moment when notions of marginality, syncretism, and hybridity are the subjects of passionate debate. A superb contribution to a multi-culturalist remapping of the cinema.

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