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Concerning Violence
Fanon, Film, and Liberation in Africa, Selected Takes 1965-1987
A beautiful photographic exploration of the revolutionary movements in Africa in the sixties and seventies.

An unblinking portrait of the anticolonial struggles of the 1960s, Concerning Violence combines more than one hundred and fifty arresting color and black-and-white photographs from Göran Hugo Olsson’s award-winning documentary, with passages from Frantz Fanon’s classic The Wretched of the Earth. Concerning Violence is a powerful commentary on the history of colonialism and struggles for self-determination, whose echoes remain with us today, and will introduce a new generation to Fanon, whom Angela Y. Davis has called "this century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism."
Reviews
  • Praise for the Concerning Violence documentary:

    "By grounding colonial brutalities and the responses to those injustices in the visual, the phenomenon of colonialism attains a larger and more global significance. Olsson’s interest is in decolonisation—that short yet potent moment at the tail end of an anti-colonial war followed by the transfer of power when the new nation comes into being. This has often proven to be one of the most violent episodes in post-colonial history, and [Frantz] Fanon is its most articulate philosopher. . . . Olsson’s investment [is] in making Fanon’s theory relevant and up-to-date."
    —Guardian

    "Concerning Violence [is] a postcolonialist montage . . . [an] illustration of Fanon’s 1961 anticolonialist broadside, The Wretched of the Earth, abridged and sharpened to its ferocious point."
    —New York Times

    "Concerning Violence [is] an intelligent, bracing look at the dynamics of colonial power."
    —Sundance Review

    "I do not think it is premature to call Concerning Violence the documentary of the year."
    —Grolsch Film Works

    "Sobering, important and expertly curated."
    —The List

    "Passionate call to arms."
    —Time Out
  • Praise for the Concerning Violence documentary:

    "By grounding colonial brutalities and the responses to those injustices in the visual, the phenomenon of colonialism attains a larger and more global significance. Olsson’s interest is in decolonisation—that short yet potent moment at the tail end of an anti-colonial war followed by the transfer of power when the new nation comes into being. This has often proven to be one of the most violent episodes in post-colonial history, and [Frantz] Fanon is its most articulate philosopher. . . . Olsson’s investment [is] in making Fanon’s theory relevant and up-to-date."
    Guardian

    "Concerning Violence [is] a postcolonialist montage . . . [an] illustration of Fanon’s 1961 anticolonialist broadside, The Wretched of the Earth, abridged and sharpened to its ferocious point."
    New York Times

    "Concerning Violence [is] an intelligent, bracing look at the dynamics of colonial power."
    Sundance Review

    "I do not think it is premature to call Concerning Violence the documentary of the year."
    Grolsch Film Works

    "Sobering, important and expertly curated."
    The List

    "Passionate call to arms."
    Time Out

Other books edited by Göran Olsson and Sophie Vukovic