African Directors

African Directors

A collection of films ranging from Morocco to South Africa.

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African Directors
  • 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...

  • Ladies in Waiting

    Directed by Dieudo Hamadi & Divita Wa Lusala • Documentary • 2009 • 24 minutes

    Taking in the wives of the unemployed, of unpaid government employees, the Kitambo maternity clinic in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo has to cope with its patients' lack of money. And negotiations are tough be...

  • Ainsi Meurent Les Anges (And So Angels Die)

    Directed by Moussa Sene Absa • Drama • With Ibrahima M'Baye, Thierno Ndiaye Doss • 2001 • 56 minutes

    Moussa Sene Absa's latest work pushes the formal boundaries of African cinema to explore the complex interplay of history and psychology in contemporary Africa. Intensely personal and at the same...