Cinema from Africa
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- DirectorRené VautierStarsRené VautierDocumentary about the living conditions in a small Ivorian village during French colonization.
- DirectorGhislain CloquetChris MarkerAlain ResnaisStarsJean NégroniFrançois MitterrandPope Pius XIIA documentary of black art.
- DirectorMamadou SarrPaulin VieyraStarsPaulin VieyraMamadou SarrMarpessa DawnPaulin Vieyra and his collaborator Mamadou Sarr explore the lives of Africans living in Paris.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsJean RouchA documentary short depicting a Hauka ceremony where young workers are possessed by British colonial officers.
- DirectorJean Rouch
- DirectorJean RouchStarsOumarou GandaGambiPetit Touré"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like sequences are shot in a poetic mode. Each day is introduced by an interstitial voice of god omniscient narration from Jean Rouch, providing a universal thematic distance to the movie's events. The film is book-ended by a narration directed at both Petit Jules and the audience from Edward G. Robinson fondly looking back on his childhood in Niger and concluding that his life is worthy of his dreams.
- DirectorLionel RogosinStarsZacharia MgabiVinah BendileMiriam MakebaCome Back, Africa chronicles the life of Zachariah, a black South African living under the rule of the harsh apartheid government in 1959.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsNadine BallotDeniseElolaThe arrival of Nadine, a new student, at a school in Abidjan is the starting point for a discussion about interracial relationships.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsAnna KarinaMichel SuborHenri-Jacques HuetDuring the Algerian War, a man and woman from opposing sides fall in love with one another.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsLy AbdoulayAlbourahBoron Sarret is arguably the first film made by a black African. It illustrates poverty in Senegal, particularly for the working man.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsMbissine Thérèse DiopAnne-Marie JelinekRobert FontaineA black girl from Senegal becomes a servant in France.
- DirectorMed HondoStarsRobert LiensolThéo LégitimusAmbroise M'BiaA native of Mauritania is delighted when he is chosen to work in Paris. However, he is disappointed when he sees racial inequity as blacks are relegated to manual labor while less skilled whites are given preferential treatment.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsDamouré ZikaLam Ibrahim DiaIllo GaoudelThe adventures of three young men who leave their homeland Savannah, Niger, and go looking for fortune in Ghana.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsMakhouredia GueyeYnousse N'DiayeIsseu NiangA money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.
- DirectorValerio ZurliniStarsWoody StrodeFranco CittiJean ServaisRebel Maurice Lalubi is arrested by the military on trumped up charges and tortured, which turns him into a martyr. Inspired by the final days of the first democratic Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsDamouré ZikaLam Ibrahim DiaIllo GaoudelAn African travels to Paris to learn about the construction of tall buildings, but is soon taken up with the oddities of French life.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsAndongo DiabonRobert FontaineMichel RenaudeauAs World War II is going on in Europe, a conflict arises between the French and the Diola-speaking tribe of Africa, prompting the village women to organize their men to sit beneath a tree to pray.
- DirectorSarah MaldororStarsElisa AndradeDomingos de OliveiraJean M'VondoA man is wrongfully arrested and tortured to death after he is suspected of being part of a revolutionary group.
- DirectorDjibril Diop MambétyStarsMagaye NiangMyriam NiangChristoph ColombMory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.
- DirectorBarbet SchroederStarsIdi AminFidel CastroGolda MeirA documentary on the military dictator of Africa's Uganda.
- DirectorRené VautierStarsGérard CroceA young French talks about his encounter with an Algerian colleague in an oil company after the independence of Algeria. In a meeting over vine and dates, he ingenuously tells about his role in the war and how his Algerian colleague reacted to this.
- DirectorMohammed Lakhdar-HaminaStarsYorgo VoyagisMohammed Lakhdar-HaminaLeila ShennaA meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian liberation national movement. The film demonstrates that the Algerian War was a slow process of revolts and suffering, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization of Algeria in 1830
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsThierno LeyeMyriam NiangSeune SambA corrupt politician is cursed with impotence on the night of his third wedding after embezzling 100 tons of rice.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneStarsTabata NdiayeAlioune FallMoustapha YadeIn protest of forced conversion to Islam, the Ceddo (outsiders) kidnap King Demba War's daughter Princess Dior Yacine and hold her hostage.
- DirectorSouleymane CisséStarsBalla Moussa KeitaBaba NiareBubukar KeitaA young manager of a factory encounters a man walking along a road who says his family traditionally are servants to the manager's family. The manager offers him a job, and as he watches out for the other man's welfare, begins to see how the company mistreats its workers. The manager is challenged between his ethics and the pressure from others to protect his own interests as dire problems surface at the factory
- DirectorSharad PatelStarsJoseph OlitaThomas BaptisteLeonard TrolleyThe chronicle of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and his tyranic rule from 1971 to his overthrow in 1979.
- DirectorMed HondoStarsAï KeïtaJean-Roger MiloFéodor AtkineOn January 2 1899, starting from the French Soudan, a french column under the commandment of the captains Voulet and Chanoine is send against the black Sultan Rabah in what is now the Cameroun. Those captains and their african mercenary troops destroy and kill everything they find on their path. The French autority try to stop them sending orders and a second troop but the captains even kill the emissaries who are reaching them. Sarraounia, queen of the Aznas, have heared about the exactions. Clever in war tactics and in witchcraft, she decides to resist and stop those mad men.
- DirectorOusmane SembeneThierno Faty SowStarsSidiki BakabaHamed CamaraIsmaila CisséIn this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home.
- DirectorFlora GomesStarsBia GomesTunu Eugenio AlmadaMamadu Uri BaldeThe story of a woman who searches through the country for her husband, a resistant, while the war for independence is raging. She finds him at last and saves his life. When peace finally arrives, they have to learn how to be together again and start living in a destroyed land.
- DirectorRaoul PeckStarsEriq EbouaneyAlex DescasThéophile SowiéThe true story of controversial leader of independent Congo Patrice Lumumba.
- DirectorNamak KhoshnawSudan's Bloody Uprising: In December 2018, the people of Sudan rose up against the thirty-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. He stood down in April, but his supporters remain in control and in June they launched a vicious attack on unarmed protesters leaving over a hundred dead and scores raped and beaten. Namak Khoshnaw follows a young Sudanese doctor, who took part in the protests, as she celebrates the uprising's success only to watch it collapse in the face of terrifying violence.
- DirectorGillo PontecorvoStarsBrahim HadjadjJean MartinYacef SaadiIn the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.
- DirectorAurelio RossiThis is a documentary recounting a trip to colonial Congo in the 1920s.
- DirectorChadi Abdel SalamStarsAhmed MareiAhmad HegaziNadia LutfiAn Upper-Egyptian clan robs a cache of mummies and sells the artifacts on the illicit antiquities black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members goes to the police, helping the Antiquities Service find the cache.
- DirectorHamada Abdel WahabStarsRushdi AbazahSouad TharwatEdmond TuimaWhile attempting to take unauthorized photos of a spaceship, a man accidently launches it, along with its Germanic inventor and a meteorologist. After several misadventures, they land on the moon. There they meet a moon man and his bevy of skimpily attired Space Babes.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsAhmad MazharSalah ZulfikarNadia LutfiAfter Saladin's victory over the King of Jerusalem, a peace treaty is signed between them, but the commander of the Crusader army, Renaud de Chatillon, slaughters a group of pilgrims going to Mecca. Saladin then decides to take revenge.
- DirectorJehane NoujaimStarsAhmed HassanKhalid AbdallaMagdy AshourA group of Egyptian revolutionaries battle leaders and regimes, risking their lives to build a new society of conscience.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsMahmoud Al MelejiNagwa IbrahimEzzat El AlailiA small peasant village's struggles against the careless inroads of the large local landowner. The Land shows why political oppression does not necessarily lead to a sense of solidarity among the disinherited.
- DirectorMohamed DiabStarsNilli KarimHany AdelMuhammad El-SebaiSet entirely in an 8m police truck, a number of detainees from different political and social backgrounds are brought together by fate, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of former president Morsi from power.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsNour El-SherifLayla OlwiMahmoud HemidaThe story is set in the 12th century in Arab-ruled Spanish province Andalusia, where famed philosopher Averroes is appointed grand judge by the caliph and his liberal court judgments are not liked by everyone. The caliph's political rivals, centered around the leader of a fanatical Islamic sect, force the caliph to send Averroes into exile, but his ideas keep on living thanks to his students.
- DirectorAntonio ClimatiMario MorraStarsGiuseppe RinaldiPit DernitzIlona StallerA notorious mondo film depicting unbelievable and bizarre rituals, animal killing and cruelty, and people being killed and eaten, all by either animals or humans against each other or themselves.
- DirectorGualtiero JacopettiFranco ProsperiStarsSergio RossiGualtiero JacopettiJomo KenyattaThe cruel acts of animal poaching and violence, executions, and tribal slaughtering, all taking place on the African continent.
- DirectorYoussef ChahineStarsFarid ShawqiHind RustumYoussef ChahineA newspaper salesman at the train station in Cairo develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who sells refreshments.
- DirectorSafi FayeStarsMagou SeckIsseu NiangMoustapha YadeMossane is a beautiful 14-year-old girl who has just reached marriageable age in a village in Senegal. She has many suitors, including a simple-minded farmer's son who plans to drag her away. Even her own brother Ngor is in love with her. However she is in love with Fara, a poor student who has returned to the village, while the university is on strike. At birth, she had been promised in marriage to Diogoye, who went away to work in France. Diogoye, who supplied her parents with many things over the years, has now sent a dowry, and asked that she be married to him in the village in his absence; she would then be sent to France.
- DirectorManthia DiawaraNgugi Wa Thiong'oStarsManthia DiawaraOusmane SembeneJohn SingletonSenegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène reminisces about his career and discusses the craft of his films and novels. Topics of discussion are also the role of the artist in society and the politics of decolonisation.
- DirectorWynant D. HubbardStarsMafuda HubbardMrs. Wynant D. HubbardWynant D. HubbardJoin the Hubbard family - father, mother and two small children - on safari. Encounter giraffes, hippos, leopards and crocodiles; share the terror when a grass fire engulfs the Hubbards' camp; share the fun when pet monkeys join the expedition; and witness a hyena/lioness battle and a heart-stopping lion attack on the Hubbard's oxen.
- DirectorSouleymane CisséStarsIssiaka KaneAoua SangareNiamanto SanogoA young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.
- DirectorMarcel GriauleJean RouchThis short documents the kind of magic ritual, found in some African societies, that the ethnographic filmmaker returned to again and again as a subject.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsIllo GaoudelDamouré ZikaIn 1946 ethnographic researcher Rouch had attempted to film a "Bangaoui," a hippopotamus hunt along the river Niger, but the results were unsatisfactory.Five years later, he returns and makes the extra effort to get it right this time.
- DirectorJean RouchAfter experience a bad catch, the inhabitants of a fishing village hold a ceremony to honour Mammy Water and restore their fortunes.
- DirectorJean RouchThis documentary portrays a ritual among the people of an Upper Volta community in Africa, where fifteen days of mourning pass between the death of their king and the introduction of his successor.
- DirectorJean RouchA yearly ceremony among the Songhai people of Niger to invoke the spirits of the sky and of rain.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsDamouré ZikaLam Ibrahim DiaTallou MouzouraneThe story follows three poultry sellers on a trip across the bush, attempting to deliver a load of chickens to a market in Niamey. When a third person joins the group, the organization of the trip begins to look even more precarious.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsTahirou KoroIssiaka MoussaBelébia MoussaA group of West African hunters embark on a ritual hunt, tracking a pride of lions which has been attacking their cattle.
- DirectorNuotama BodomoStarsDiandra ForrestYolonda RossHoji Fortuna16th July 1969: America prepares to launch Apollo 11. Thousands of kilometers away, a ragtag group of Zambian exiles is trying to beat America to the Moon.
- DirectorWanuri KahiuStarsKudzani MoswelaChantelle BurgerTammy RichardsA sci-fi film about Africa in the future, 35 years after World War III, the water war.
- DirectorDan MuchinaStarsAnita KavuuBlessing LungahoRenson ThandiweSet in a post-apocalyptic Nairobi, when the government has shut down the internet, books and the written word have become exponentially valuable and the world has been turned on its head.
- DirectorMiguel LlansóStarsDaniel TadesseQuino PiñeroSelam TesfayieOur figurine sized supermen hero embarks on an epic surreal journey that will take him across the Ethiopian post apocalyptic landscape in search of a way to get on the hovering spacecraft that for years has become a landmark in the skies.
- DirectorMiguel LlansóStarsDaniel TadesseAgustín MateoGuillermo LlansóCIA Agents Palmer and Gagano are tasked with the mission of destroying a computer virus called "Soviet Union". They enter the system using VR but the mission turns into a trap.
- DirectorNgozi OnwurahStarsSuzette LlewellynSaffron BurrowsFelix JosephRacial violence breaks out in a huge, black ghetto - triggered by a white woman living there with a black man.
- DirectorHaile GerimaStarsKofi GhanabaOyafunmike OgunlanoAlexandra DuahA self-absorbed Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Africa is spiritually transported back to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences first-hand the physical and psychic horrors of chattel slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of community and rebellion as she becomes a member of a freedom-seeking Maroon colony.
- DirectorHaile GerimaStarsKasu AsfawGebru KasaWorke KasaIn Ethiopia; there is a slow boiling of a feud between a wealthy Lord and a protester who feels he is mistreating his laborers. While the viewer gets to closely examine the culture, conversations, and lives of the locals who surround them.
- DirectorAlbert Samama ChiklyStarsHayde ChiklyAhmed DziriAbdelgassen Ben TalebThe daughter of a local authority is in love with a poor minaret crier and resists a rich man from Tunisia.
- DirectorSir Robert AsheRobert W. PaulRelaxing soldiers are ambushed and shot.
- StarsPieter Cronje
- DirectorHenry ShortFishermen choose their poor catch from the nets.
- DirectorRichard StanleyStarsRobert John BurkeChelsea FieldZakes MokaeA woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker.
- DirectorMichael ShackletonStarsChristopher MayerRichard MollSue KielAn astronaut travels across the post apocalyptic Earth in search of an underground city.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsJason CopeKen LawsonCoulton JacksonNeill Blomkamp's disturbing vision of the future on Earth, a computer generated film created in Unity 2017 and rendered in real-time at 30 frames per second.
- DirectorRichard StanleyStarsDylan McDermottStacey TravisJohn LynchThe head of a cyborg reactivates, rebuilds itself, and goes on a violent rampage in a space marine's girlfriend's apartment.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsSteve BoyleNic RhindRobert HobbsWhile fighting the Vietnam war, both sides face a new kind of threat that neither of them were prepared for.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsJason CopeSharlto CopleyGod and Geoffrey watch over and interact with a developing civilization.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsMike BlomkampTrevor CawoodToby Hargrave2 scientists develop a weapon. They can control a human's neural activation by this weapon. Scientists try this weapon on a prisoner.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsSharlto CopleyDavid JamesJason CopeViolence ensues after an extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth finds a kindred spirit in a government agent exposed to their biotechnology.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsSigourney WeaverEugene KhumbanyiwaRobert HobbsA tale of a dystopian future where an unknown alien group have colonised the earth and humans struggle to fight back.
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsDakota FanningJose Pablo CantilloStranded in an Arctic mine, two lone survivors are forced to fight for their lives, evading and hiding from a new kind of terror.
- DirectorJamie UysStarsN!xauMarius WeyersSandra PrinslooA comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects, including a clumsy scientist and a band of revolutionaries.
- DirectorIvan HallStarsJames RyanAnneline KrielMichael MayerWhen Dr. Horatio Kane is kidnapped and is forced to create an army of martial artists his daughter Kandy Kane is the only one who can help. She enlists the help of Steve Chase to save her father and the day.
- DirectorIvan HallStarsJames RyanCharlotte MichelleNorman CoombesTwo former ranking figures of the Axis powers schedule a deadly martial arts tournament in an isolated locale. The two rivals then race to assemble the top competitors from around the world, with Steve Hunt being the most sought after fighter.
- DirectorDavid WintersNeal SundstromStarsReb BrownJohn Phillip LawJames RyanA pilot is the only hope to stop the mutiny of a spacecraft by its security crew, who plot to sell the crew of the ship into slavery.
- DirectorMalik BendjelloulStarsRodriguezStephen 'Sugar' SegermanDennis CoffeyTwo South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock n roller, Rodriguez.
- DirectorBoaz DavidsonStarsMichael ParéBilly DragoWalker BrandtA cop from the moon is sent to the Earth, now possessed by motorcycle-riding "Mad Max"-like inhabitants, to stop a serum from being released that he believes is going to destroy the Earth...
- DirectorNeill BlomkampStarsMackenzie GrayToby HargraveKen LawsonA man, trying to protect his home, confronts a medieval army. He has a fatal confrontation with a 30 foot tall giant while his wife cowers behind him.
- DirectorNathan JuranStarsAnthony QuayleSylvia SymsDerek FowldsDuring the Mahdist insurrection in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, veteran colonial Private Baker teams up with freshly arrived gentleman Murchison, trying to evacuate from southern Barash the Emir's daughter Asua and her English governess, Miss Woodville. It's a perilous journey on the Nile and its banks. They must face crocodiles, Arab slavers, and a backward Negro tribe they prey on, where King Gondoko's missionary-raised brother Kimrasi saves and joins them. Once in capital Khartum, they find the revolt has reached it and the men join the fight.
- DirectorJohn RawlinsStarsMaria MontezJon HallTurhan BeyYoung, lovely Naila becomes queen of the ancient Egyptian kingdom of Khemis after her father is killed in a slave revolt. Continuing her penchant for going incognito among the people, she seeks out rebel leader Herua. But through palace treachery, she herself is captured and enslaved. After various adventures, she finds herself rescued by (and attracted to) the very rebel she was seeking. Will gratitude or revenge win out? Gorgeous scenery and costumes.
- DirectorNabwana I.G.G.StarsKakule WilliamSserunya ErnestG. PuffsUganda's president gives Captain Alex an assignment to defeat the Tiger Mafia, but he gets killed in the process. Upon hearing the tragic news, his brother investigates to avenge Alex's death.