Coconut Head Generation (Alain Kassanda)
New: Documentaries
•
1h 29m
Directed by Alain Kassanda • Documentary • 2023 • 89 minutes
At Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest university, a student association hosts a documentary screening and discussion group. In a country where dissent is frequently punished, this Thursday Film Series becomes a space for conversation and impassioned debate.
Organizers program films by the likes of John Akomfrah (Ghana/UK), Jean-Marie Teno (Mauritania), and Med Hondo (Cameroon). With the films as a starting point, the students hold compelling discussions on issues including corruption, gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights, colonialism, housing, and corruption. In between screenings, we get a taste of their daily lives at university, as they play soccer, eat instant noodles and joke around with each other.
But when nationwide protests against police brutality break out, students find themselves on the front lines of resistance — and the issues that occupied them take on a new urgency. Meanwhile, university life is far from carefree, with frequent blackouts, overcrowded conditions, and consequences for even the most benign actions to better their lives.
“Coconut head generation” is a term used by older generations to denigrate young Nigerians as brainless. As this film makes abundantly clear, they are anything but.
Up Next in New: Documentaries
-
The Champagne Safari
Directed by George Ungar • Documentary • 1995 • 94 minutes
What was a reputed Nazi collaborator doing reconnoitering the Canadian Northwest in 1934? In that year, mogul Charles Bedaux embarked on an ill-fated journey across through the Canadian Rockies. His upper-crust caravan, called "The Champ...
-
Stolen Spirits
Directed by Anne Worthington • Documentary • 2022 • 31 minutes
In 2021, in the small rural town of Genoa Nebraska, a harrowing search commenced to locate the graves of Native America children who were taken from their tribes and sent to the Genoa U.S Indian Industrial School, one of America’s la...
-
Touristic Intents
Directed by Mat Rappaport • Documentary • With Hasso Spode, Sussanna Misgajski, Gabi Dolff-Bonekämper • 2022 • 72 minutes
Architecture, mass tourism and political ideology come together in Touristic Intents, a new documentary that investigates the never-completed Nazi resort of Prora on Germany'...
