That’s the same answer we get from the French or from our African leaders because they have a complete ignorance of the role of films. We think that, little by little, we are changing this mentality which says that a cowboy film is the only kind of film that the African public likes. I think it’s up to African filmmakers to fight to change this defective distribution. The African public is now beginning to appreciate our films, so saying that it is a cowboy film that the African public prefers is not really telling the truth. For instance, there is a public now prepared to receive Afro-American films in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, etc. For the African public the most well-known actors are Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, and I’m sure a film like Super Fly would have the largest box-office of any film in Africa. So you can see that it’s not really a question of a preference for cowboy films, it’s just that those distributors and certain government leaders who deal with distribution prefer cowboy films.

[From The Cineaste Interviews, edited by Dan Georgakas (Chicago: Lake View Press, 1983)]