Olivier Barlet is a French journalist, translator, film critic and researcher on African cinema and its diasporas (black and Arab worlds, interculturalities).

A member of the Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma, he wrote about cinema in the monthly magazines Africa international, Afrique-Asie and Continental as well as in the Letter des musiques et des arts Africans, before funding with a few colleagues the magazine Africultures in November 1997, of which he was editor-in-chief from 1997 to 2004, and where he published nearly 1800 articles on African cinema.

As president or editor-in-chief, he has intervened in the public debate, notably on human zoos,[4] the commemoration of the abolition of slavery,[5] the intellectual movement[6] and immigration issues.

Published in 1996, Les Cinemas d’Afrique noire: le regard en question, won the 1997 Prix Art et Essai from the Centre national de la Cinématographie.

[13] According to Pierre Barrot, he analyses “three major trends of the past decade: the breakthrough of filmmakers with an immigrant background, the retreat of historical taboos and the affirmation of women”.