African films, still poorly circulated within commercial cinema circuits, are sometimes mostly looked at in an anthropologic and ethnographic perspective, rather than as artistic expressions. It is for this reason that reviews of movies such as Un homme qui crie (Mahamat Saleh Haroun, Chad, Belgium, France, 2010), mainly deal with the situation in Chad rather than with cinematographic aspects. Likewise, for a long time, African filmmakers were prisoners of their origins, compelled to answer to the foreign expectations. Today, many directors openly deal with their subjectivities, their complex and shifting identities that are an integral component of their lives and experiences. They put into play their hybrid existence, complex and yet enriching, mirroring the complexity of realities. The present article deals with the central role that the theme of the search for identity, in constant movement and definition, plays in the lives and notably in the works of these African filmmakers that are thus placed within a wider, universal context.
