ABSTRACT
This chapter imagines that ‘African’ is a relatively stable designation. It discusses the renewed attention to the ‘transnational’ as an essential characteristic of world cinema. The chapter focuses on the term: ‘world cinema’. The designation of a ‘World Cinema’ has also long been polemical, in spite of all good intentions its users may have had. The reluctance of some of the key film scholars working on the issues of transnationality, world cinema, and ‘Lusophone’ cinema, to engage with World-Systems Theory, is puzzling. The question of realism is extremely important and it would need much more attention. Lucia Nagib in a sense has even already initiated another debate on world cinema with her proposal to view ‘realist’ cinema as the proper category instead of ‘world cinema’.
