In the early 1920s Norway’s Kommunernes Filmscentral A/S (Municipal Films Exchange), the national distributor to municipal cinemas, printed a catalogue offering 73 new titles listed as educational short movies, 20 with an African theme. Four of the films in this programme can be securely identified as being in that catalogue; one more title can, with some hesitation, also be matched with an entry in that list. Our sixth film – something of an outsider – is a safari short with a monkey as its leading star. All titles were preserved and digitally restored at the Nasjonalbiblioteket’s laboratory, 2015-17.
I am grateful to Dr. Neil Carrier of the University of Oxford for his invaluable assistance in identifying ethnic groups and certain locations.

Tina Anckarman