-
Libende Boyz
Directed by Wendy Bashi • Documentary • 2021 • 46 minutes
Since October 2014 in Beni (North Kivu) people live in fear in this area of Democratic Republic of Congo. In this hectic and chaotic context, a group of young rappers and musicians dream about glory and success. They call themselves “Libe...
-
Al Djanat, the Original Paradise
Directed by Chloé Aïcha BORO • Documentary • 2023 • 83 minutes
When her uncle dies, Chloé Aïcha Boro films the courtyard at the family house in Burkina Faso, where communal meetings and prayers have been held. Some of the heirs lay claim to it under French law, whereas others believe they can pr...
-
Zinder
Directed by Aicha Macky • Documentary • 2021 • 82 minutes
The wind-swept town of Zinder in the heart of the Sahel region of Niger is a place travellers only pass through.
Kara-Kara, the former lepers’ quarter, is the pariahs’ district of this town. Gangs referred to as the "Palais” have sprung ...
-
The Spectre of Boko Haram
Directed by Cyrielle Raingou • Documentary • 2023 • 75 minutes
The Far North Region of Cameroon, bordering Nigeria, lives under military protection, threatened by murderous terrorist incursions. In the village of Kolofata, Mohamed, Ibrahim and Falta — indirect victims of Boko Haram — attempt to ...
-
Donga
Directed by Muhannad Lamin • Documentary • With Ali Sabty • 2023 • 90 minutes
During Libya's 2011 uprising, young Donga filmed battles, infusing moments of community and humor amidst the war's chaos. Decades later in Istanbul, wounded he grapples with war's grim realities, yet his enduring spiri...
-
The Prison Promise
Directed by Joseph Ndjom • Documentary • 2021 • 55 minutes
Detyr and his partner Adele exchanged a promise while they were still prisoners — to make their life together once released. Now established in the village of Nkonga (Cameroon), their desire to marry faces opposition from Detyr's family.
-
Softie
Directed by Sam Soko • Documentary • 2020 • 96 minutes
Boniface “Softie” Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country as a political activist. Now he’s taking the next step by running for office in a regional Kenyan election. From the moment Boniface decides to run, telling his wife, Njeri, ...
-
On My Mother's Life
Directed by Maïram Guissé • Documentary • 2022 • 52 minutes
This is a daughter telling the story of her mother. For a long time, she saw her without really looking at her. But now, her mother is on the eve of retirement, preparing a long trip back to Senegal. So Maïram wants to understand who is...
-
Colette and Justin
Directed by Alain Kassanda • Documentary • 2023 • 89 minutes
Born in Kinshasa and living in Paris, filmmaker Alain Kassanda embodies the classic immigrant dual identity: in the Democratic Republic of Congo he is seen as French, while in France he is seen as Congolese. Determined to understand th...
-
A Daughter’s Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé
Directed by Fatou Cissé • Documentary • With Souleymane Cissé, Martin Scorsese, Costa-Gavras, Baba Diop • 2022 • 73 minutes
A Daughter’s Tribute to Her Father: Souleymane Cissé is the story of a filmmaker as told by his daughter. Through interviews with his friends, family, and collaborators, th...
-
Trouble Sleep
Directed by Alain Kassanda • Documentary • 2020 • 41 minutes
Kassanda’s freewheeling urban portrait follows two young men, Fred and Akin, as they navigate the crowded roadways of Ibadan, Nigeria’s third largest city. Engineering graduate Fred is beginning a new job as a taxi driver, while Akin p...
-
When A Farm Goes Aflame
Directed by Jide Tom Akinleminu • Documentary • 2021 • 112 minutes
A young Nigerian leaves his village at the end of the 1960s and goes to Denmark to study. There he meets his future wife. Together they move to Nigeria and start a family. But 16 years later, circumstances in a politically tense ...
-
Love the One You Love
Directed by Jenna Bass • Drama • With Chi Mhende, Andile Nebulane, Louw Venter • 2015 • 88 minutes
Across the city of Cape Town, a sex-line operator, a dog handler, a love-sick IT-technician and a lonely teenager begin to suspect that their romantic relationships are the subject of a bizarre co...
-
Shirley Adams
Directed by Oliver Hermanus • Drama • With Denise Newman, Keenan Arrison • 2009 • 91 minutes
Shirley Adams spends her days caring for her disabled son, Donovan - he was shot in the back of the neck on his way home from school one afternoon over a year ago.
Since then the Adams family has lost al... -
Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You.
Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese • Documentary • 2021 • 76 minutes
As we float through the streets of Lesotho, following a cross-bearing woman and an omnipresent figure wearing wings, a tumultuous history of sorrow and suffering between the motherland and its people unravels. The through lin...
-
Aya of Yop City
Directed by Marguerite Abouet, Clément Oubrerie • Animation • With Aissa Maiga, Eriq Ebouaney, Jacky Ido, Pascal N'Zonzi, Jean-Baptiste Anoumon • 2012 • 88 minutes
Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Ivory Coast in the 1970s, AYA OF YOP CITY is a spirited and hilarious adaptation of the best...
-
Prism
Directed by Eléonore Yameogo, An van. Dienderen, and Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2021 • 78 minutes
Is the technology of photography and motion pictures inherently racist?
For PRISM, Belgian filmmaker An van. Dienderen invited Rosine Mbakam, from Cameroon, and Eléonore Yameogo from Burkina Fas...
-
Delphine's Prayers
Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2021 • 91 minutes
Delphine reclines on a daybed in her bright, cluttered apartment in Belgium, an empty crib beside her. “I started to work the streets like crazy,” she says, matter-of-factly recounting her life story. “Selling my body.” Delphine, who is...
-
Until the Birds Return
Directed by Karim Moussaoui • Drama • With Mohamed Djouhri, Hania Amar, Hassan Kachach • 2018 • 113 minutes
A property developer is witness to random street violence. A pair of secret lovers make their way across the desert. A doctor is accused of having a criminal past. In these three interconn...
-
Downstream to Kinshasa
Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2021 • 89 minutes
Over six bloody days in June 2000, the Congolese city of Kisangani was the scene of deadly violence between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies. More than 10,000 shells exploded, killing thousands and injuring thousands more.
Since then, v...
-
Papicha
Directed by Mounia Meddour • Drama • With Lyna Khoudri, Shirine Boutella, Amira Hilda Douaouda • 2019 • 108 minutes
Set in Algeria in the 1990's, Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri, The French Dispatch), is an 18 year-old student passionate about fashion design who refuses to let the tragic events of the Alge...
-
How to Steal a Country
Directed by Rehad Desai, co-directed by Mark Kaplan • Documentary • 2020 • 87 minutes
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY opens like a classic thriller, with investigative journalists meeting anonymous whistleblowers in a parking garage. There, they receive a hard drive filled with hundreds of thousands of e...
-
Doors of the Past
Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Drama • 2011 • 14 minutes
A professionally dressed white woman, a television anchor, sits in the studio, pen in hand. She looks straight into the camera and says, “At home, the older you get, the more people respect you. Here, old people have no use. It frightens me. ...
-
Thunderbolt
Directed by Tunde Kelani • Drama • With Uche Ama Abriel, Bukky Ajayi, Larinde Akinleye • 2000 • 110 minutes
Thunderbolt will come as a bolt out of the blue to most Americans, even aficionados of African cinema. It is one of the best examples of the little-known but burgeoning video industry of N...