African Directors

African Directors

A collection of films ranging from Morocco to South Africa.

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African Directors
  • You Will Be My Ally

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Drama • With Bwanga Pilipili • 2013 • 20 minutes

    In this gripping short drama, Domé, a young woman from Gabon who speaks flawless French, is apprehended at the airport on her way into Belgium. She says she’s a French citizen—a businesswoman on her way to meet with sup...

  • This is Nollywood

    Directed by Franco Sacchi • Documentary • 2007 • 56 minutes

    First came Hollywood, then Bollywood and now Nollywood, Nigeria’s booming film industry, which released 2000 feature features in 2006 alone. Where else can you shoot a full-length dramatic film for $10,000 in 7 days? Until recently litt...

  • Karmen Gei

    Directed by Joseph Gai Ramaka • Drama • With Djeïnaba Diop Gaï, Magaye Niang, Stephanie Biddle • 2001 • 82 minutes

    Director Joseph Gaï Ramaka writes: "Carmen is a myth but what does Carmen represent today? Where do Carmen's love and freedom stand at the onset of the 21st Century? Therein lies my...

  • Ezra

    Directed by Newton Aduaka • Drama • With Mamoudu Turay Kamara, Mariame N'Diaye, Mamusu Kallon • 2007 • 110 minutes

    Ezra stands out among other African films because it is a complex psychological study of a child soldier, not just about the trauma, healing and reintegration into society, but also...

  • Hissein Habre, A Chadian Tragedy

    Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun • Documentary • 2016 • 82 minutes

    In 2013, former Chadian dictator Hissein Habre's arrest in Senegal marked the end of a long combat for the survivors of his regime. Accompanied by the Chairman of the Association of the Victims of the Hissein Habre Regime, Mahama...

  • Miners Shot Down

    Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2014 • 86 minutes

    In August 2012, mine workers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress it, killing 34 and injuring many more. Th...

  • Razzia

    Directed by Nabil Ayouch • Drama • With Maryam Touzani, Arieh Worthalter, Amine Ennaji • 2017 • 119 minutes

    In this searing and mesmerizing drama, five Moroccans from different social and religious strata are pushed to the fringe by their extremist government. Spanning three decades and several ...

  • Bamako

    Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako • Drama • With Danny Glover, Aïssa Maïga, Tiécoura Traoré • 2006 • 117 minutes

    An extraordinary trial is taking place in a residential courtyard in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. African citizens have taken proceedings against such international financial inst...

  • Lamb

    Directed by Yared Zeleke • Drama • With Rediat Amare, Kidist Siyum, Welela Assefa • 2016 • 94 minutes

    Yared Zeleke's remarkable feature debut tells the story of young Ephraim, a half-Jewish, Ethiopian boy who is sent by his father to live among distant relatives after his mother's death. Ephraim...

  • Congo: The Doctor Who Saves Women

    Directed by Angele Diabang • Documentary • 2014 • 52 minutes

    Dr. Denis Mukwege, the winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, is a gynecologist and the founder of Panzi, a hospital whose primary mission is treating women who have been raped - casualties in the Democratic Republic of Congo's decades-...

  • Viva Riva

    Directed by Djo Tunda Wa Munga • Drama • With Patsha Bay Mukuna • 2011 • 96 minutes

    Riva is a small time operator who has just returned to his hometown of Kinshasa, Congo after a decade away with a major score: a fortune in hijacked gasoline. Wads of cash in hand and out for a good time, Riva is...

  • National Diploma

    Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2014 • 92 minutes

    NATIONAL DIPLOMA follows a group of Congolese high-school students about to take the state exam in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dieudo Hamadi's documentary closely follows them as they prepare for the test, from the benches of the ...

  • Mama Colonel

    Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2017 • 72 minutes

    Colonel Honorine Manyole, commonly known as 'Mama Colonel,' works for the Congolese police force and heads the unit for the protection of minors and the fight against sexual violence. Having worked for 15 years in Bukavu, in the east of...

  • Everything Must Fall

    Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2018 • 85 minutes

    Can a diverse group of college kids find common ground with their school’s faculty and janitorial staff to bring the school administration to its knees? Can they banish a nation’s crippling student debt, guarantee workers benefits and liv...

  • For the Best and for the Onion!

    Directed by Elhadj Magori Sani • Documentary • 2008 • 52 minutes

    "I am singing about onion farming, bringing both suffering and joy." So sings an onion farmer as he works his field Galmi, in Niger. Beside him stands Yaro, a fellow farmer who knows all too well the hope and sorrow his livelihood ...

  • Chez Jolie Coiffure

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2018 • 70 minutes

    Sabine attaches a hair weave and gets to work. Her hands move quickly and precisely, as she tightly braids the hair in front of the sign in her salon promising African, European, and American-style coiffure. Sabine is a larger than-life...

  • Forgotten World

    Directed by Terri Ella • Documentary • 2015 • 52 minutes

    Snaking north through eastern South Africa, the Mpumalanga Escarpment is dotted by mysterious stone structures-stone-lined roads, terraces, and the nested circular patterns-left behind by a now-vanished civilization.

    FORGOTTEN WORLD featu...

  • The Giant Is Falling

    Directed by Rehad Desai and Jabulani Mzozo • Documentary • 2016 • 77 minutes

    The loyalty people have for the party of liberation operates at a deep psychological level. But in recent years, the ANC's popularity is at an all time low, not least amongst people who were once its most loyal supporte...

  • Hamou-Beya, Sand Fishers

    Directed by Andrey Samoute Diarra • Documentary • 2012 • 72 minutes

    The Bozo of Mali are people of the water. For generations, they have lived along the banks of the Niger river, fishing for their livelihood. But climate change and drought have brought lower water levels and fewer fish, driving ...

  • Last Grave at Dimbaza

    Directed by Chris Curling and Pascoe Macfarlane • Documentary • 1974 • 55 minutes

    In 1969, a small group of South African exiles and British film students formed Morena Films in London to produce films about apartheid. By 1974, they produced one of the first, and certainly the most influential, ...

  • Thank You for the Rain

    Directed by Julia Dahr and Kisilu Musya • Documentary • 2017 • 87 minutes

    Five years ago Kisilu, a Kenyan farmer, started to use his camera to capture the life of his family, his village and the damages of climate change. When a violent storm throws him and a Norwegian filmmaker together we see ...

  • The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2016 • 76 minutes

    Rosine Mbakam left Cameroon at 27 to live in Belgium. Seven years later—having studied film and married a European—she returns to make what she calls a journey into darkness—to the village of her birth, and later to the capital city of ...