The Early African Cinemas Lab at IU, directed by Prof. Vincent Bouchard, has had a busy year filled with a variety of activities, including the Collections of Sembène and Vieyra Workshop, the Legacy of Sembène & Vieyra Public Events Series, and the creation of digital humanities projects.  

Research Workshop 

The highlight of the 2024-2025 academic year was the long-anticipated Collections of Sembène and Vieyra Workshop, held from May 27th to June 6th, 2025. This 10-day event invited over a dozen researchers from around the globe to explore Indiana University’s collections on Early African Cinemas. Specialists in the field traveled to Bloomington to conduct research in the newly opened Vieyra archives at the Black Film Center & Archive on campus and the Sembène papers at the Lilly Library. Seeking to generate a more accurate and precise understanding of the history of African cinemas, this workshop’s next phase is the development of a collective volume on the findings uncovered by the participants, tentatively entitled Histories from the New Archives: Sembène, Vieyra, and the Birth of African Cinema. Key individuals to the organization and execution of the Workshop were FRIT students, including Lab Coordinator Claire Fouchereaux (PhD, FFS ’25, MA ‘20), Jordan Howard (PhD Student, FFS, MA ’23), Micah McCauley (PhD Student, FFS, MA ’25), Una Mijatovic (MA Student, FFS), and Thomas Pigott (French Minor, BA ’25). 

Series of Public Events 

As a kick-off event to the Workshop and continuing simultaneously, the Legacy of Sembène and Vieyra series underscored the role of these two pioneers within African Cinemas by inviting the public to view African films at Bloomington’s Buskirk-Chumley Theater, the IU Cinema, and the IU Libraries’ Screening Room. Hosted by graduate student Lab member Jordan Howard, these screenings featured discussions with invited guests such as Prof. Brett Bowles (FRIT), Prof. Daniela Ricci (Université Paris Nanterre), and Senegalese film critic and journalist Fatou Kiné Sène.  

Digital Tools 

During the 2024-2025 academic year, the Lab also made important advances in the realm of the digital humanities in relation to the study of Early African Cinemas. Notably, Claire Fouchereaux and Jordan Howard traveled to the Popular Culture Association National Conference held in New Orleans in April 2025 to give a presentation entitled “Space, Place, and AVAnnotate: Analyzing Early African Short-Films with a Digital Humanities Tool." This presentation was based on the AVAnnotate projects developed in partnership with undergraduate assistants Thomas Pigott and Brayden Stalcup on the short films C’était il y a quatre ans (1954) by Paulin S. Vieyra and Borom Sarret (1963) by Ousmane Sembène.  

Thomas Pigott has also played a key role in the Lab’s development of a database for researchers on Early African Cinemas through the support of the Faculty Assistance in Data Science (FADS) program, run out of the Luddy School of Informatics. This data-sharing tool will be integral to the centralization of archival data coming out of new discoveries from the archives by researchers in the Lab’s international network. This network will grow even stronger in the next few years due to the Lab’s reinforced presence on the web through the creation of an Early African Cinemas Lab website (earlyafricancinemas.lab.indiana.edu), through the hard work of Jordan Howard, and of the Lab’s Instagram account (@eaclab_iu), thanks to Una Mijatovic. 

Other Lab News 

Prof. Bouchard has spent the 2024-2025 academic year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes, France, with additional support from IU’s Prestigious Award Leave Program. While away, he has been consulting important archives that document French government involvement in the early years of West African cinema. This summer will also see the promotion of Jordan Howard to the role of Lab Coordinator for the 2025-2026 academic year, while the outgoing Lab Coordinator, Claire Fouchereaux, will soon begin a Postdoctoral position at Wabash College.