Film production as a ‘mirror of society’: The history of a video film art group in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract The Tanzanian video film industry is one example for the changes in popular arts production due to the introduction of the medium video film. The shift to the medium video film has created new visual styles and restructured physical and social spaces of production. Focusing on the history of the video film art group White Elephant, this article aims to show how the production of video films under conditions of intense competition and time pressure is a site of struggle over aesthetics, resources, identities and status. Relating the film groups to the history of art groups in Eastern Africa will point to the differences and continuities between the independent commercial production of video film and former popular art production as well as their relation to the state. This fields of production and the struggles within can be seen as a ‘mirror of society’ characterizing the dynamics of social change in contemporary Tanzania.