Cinema of Togo
Cinema in Togo began with German colonial filmmakers visiting Togoland. The French attempted to suppress cinema in French Togoland. After the Togolese Republic gained independence in 1960, Togo's national government encouraged cinema, though government support for cinema lapsed when French funding was withdrawn in the 1990s. More recently, however, the film industry is once again growing in Togo.
Cinema in the colonial period
The amateur filmmaker Carl Müller filmed Lomé in 1906, touring Germany with his films on his return. More systematic encouragement to colonial filming of Togoland was provided by the explorer Adolf Friedrich, colonial governor of Togoland from 1912 to 1914. Wilhelm Solf's 1913 visit to the colony was filmed and distributed in Europe. Hans Schomburgk first visited Togo in 1913–14, working with the British cameraman James S. Hodgson and the actress Meg Gehrts. Though the outbreak of World War I led to most of their material being confiscated and lost, Schomburgk had enough material to release a series of short films in 1916–17. Schomburgk's Im Deutschen Sudan was a feature-length 1917 documentary, used for colonial propaganda.French colonial law did not initially regulate film production and distribution. In 1932 the French colonial administrator Robert de Guise complained that Africans in French Togoland, such as Albert John Mensah in Lomé, were turning their homes and businesses into illicit cinemas. As a result, the Laval Decree established censorship to control the authorship, content and distribution of films.