Filmmakers in sub-Saharan francophone Africa have been using cinema since independence in the 1960s to challenge existing Western stereotypes of the continent.

In Africa Shoots Back, Melissa Thackway illustrates how directors working in a postcolonial context have produced these alternative depictions of African identity. She shows how memory and history have become central themes in African films and how local cultural forms have been integrated into the film medium. Interviews with eight African filmmakers enlarge Thackway's account of the new cinematic codes and previously silenced voices given life in African film.