5 African Films to Watch Out For, N°19

“Vers la forêt de nuages” (“To the cloud forest”) is a film by Robin Hunzinger, who tells a story about his Ivorian wife Aya and their son Tim (in the image above), travelling in Côte d’Ivoire to pay tribute to Aya’s father who recently passed way. The film intends to offer a portrait of and an “initiation” to the country. Follow the production of the project on its Facebook page. Here’s a first trailer:

The director of “Pars et Reviens Tard” (“Leave and come back late(r)”) Aurylia Rotolo (with help from Xavier Deleu) first met the documentary’s protagonist, “Régis,” while in Tanger, Morocco. Cameroonian Régis — a professional football player in his home country — had plans to make a living in Europe but wasn’t gonna risk his life crossing the Mediterranean Sea illegally. When Moroccan clubs turn out not to be too keen to give him a contract either, he returns home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNrjCUQVkeI

For reasons so far unknown, a screening of Jews of Egypt was banned by the Egyptian National Security earlier this week. The documentary is a portrait of the lives of the Egyptian Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century until their second grand exodus after 1956. “An attempt to understand the change in the identity of the Egyptian society that turned from a society full of tolerance and acceptance of one another … and how it changed gradually by mixing religious and political views into a society that rejects the others,” in the words of the film’s director Amir Ramses:

“Downtown Tribes” is a short documentary created and directed by Amirah Tajdin, and produced by Wafa Tajdin of 8486 Films, commissioned by STR.CRD and shot at their “Urban Street Culture Event” last year (where Dylan and Antoinette also interviewed Just A Band). Loyal AIAC readers will have fun spotting the many familiar faces:

And “A Batalha de Tabatô” (“The Battle of Tabatô”) is a first-time feature by director Joao Viana exploring music, magic and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “post-colonial angst” in Guinea-Bissau. We’re still interested though, because that same review remarks Viana’s combining “a strong eye and rich subject matter”. Here’s a first teaser:

And here’s another one.

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.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.