Africa Is a Country

There’s an African film festival in Scotland

There’s an African film festival in Scotland

By
Tom Devriendt

Africa in Motion, Scotland’s African Film Festival, kicks off in Edinburgh and Glasgow today. Here’s a selection of scheduled films which might as well double as our weekly “10 films to watch out for” series. The festival opens with the debut feature film from South African filmmaker, author and playwright Ndaba ka Ngwane, Uhlanga (“The mark”), set in KwaZulu-Natal:

In Yellow Fever, Ng’endo Mukii explores concepts of skin and race, using a mix of different media and interviews:

From AIM’s “African Films for Children” event: The Pepper Merchant, an episode of the Ethiopian animated children series which follows twins Abeba and Abebe. Below is another example of the many episodes available on the series’ YouTube channel:

Two from the short film competition. Moroccan director Lamia Alami’s Salam Ghourba (“Farewell exile”), a film from 2011, tells the story of Fatima, waiting for a letter from her husband who has migrated to France:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IZSNwtOsZ8

…and Who Killed Me, by Tanzanian director Amil Shivji, a short on the life (and death, I presume) of Hassan, a Congolese immigrant in Canada:

In the festival’s “Arab Spring Documentaries” section, there is Rouge Parole, a work of Elyes Baccar on the uprisings in Tunisia and their aftermath:

Granny’s Flags, a short by Naziha Arebi about Haja Fatma, a mother to eight children, considering freedom in Tripoli during the Libyan Revolution:

Also featuring in the Tripoli Stories series is The Secret Room by Ibrahim Y. Shebani about the caretaker for the National Museum of Libya:

Filed under “African Popular Arts” is Volker Goetze’s The Griot, the musician’s documentary on contemporary West African oral epics (I’ll watch any film which has Mamadou Diouf or Randy Weston as talking heads)…

…and Twende Berlin (“Let’s go to Berlin”), a documentary about Hip Hop group Ukoo Flani’s 2010 visit to Berlin — with some help of Nairobi’s Goethe-Institute project BLNRB (you remember their music videos):

Africa in Motion can also be found on Twitter and Facebook. It runs until 2 November. Full programme of scheduled films and events here. Saturday’s scholarly symposium looks good too.

Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.

Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.