While publications on the essay film have hitherto focussed on white male filmmaking, thereby perpetuating Romanticism’s patriarchal, logocentric myth of the (male) genius, essay film research needs to broaden its scope to include female directors and/or directors-of-colour. Inclusive gestures alone, however, cannot challenge dominant canon constructions and their inherent dominance of the ‘usual suspects’, such as Resnais, Marker, Godard, or Farocki. Conceptualisations of World cinema (Chaudhuri 2005, Durovicova/Newman 2010, Nagib/Perriam/Dudrah 2012) and European cinema through a transnational perspective (Elsaesser 2005, Bergfelder 2005) can add new dimensions to essay film research, denouncing auteurism as one of the major points of reference for global film practice. However, a director's status as an auteur is still crucial for his or her critical reception, and as a result, for canon formation and its repercussions on film historiography. Conceptualising a film as an essay film can liberate it from a reductive critical reception as an expression of a minoritarian position. Using the example of John Akomfrah, my paper develops the concept of 'strategic auteurism', examining boththe self-fashioning of a filmmaker and his/her conceptualisation by curators and film scholars alike.