Africa Is a Country

5 New Films to Watch Out For, N°28

5 New Films to Watch Out For, N°28

By
Tom Devriendt

Here’s another pick of five interesting-looking new films that have come out recently. Born This Way is a film by Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann about gay activists and members of “Alternatives Cameroun,” the first LGBT organization in Cameroon — a cause made all the more urgent by the recent killing of Camfaids director and activist Eric Lembembe. You’ll also recognize lawyer (and AIAC’s “woman of the year”) Alice Nkom:

El Gusto is Safinez Bousbia’s film about an Algerian group of Jewish and Muslim musicians who were separated by history over 50 years ago and have been reunited some years ago to share once again their passion for Chaabi music. They have since gone on to record albums with Damon Albarn and Sodi:

Aya de Yopougon, the film interpretation of Marguerite Abouet’s popular graphic novel set in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, has been a long time coming. The animated film draws from the first two volumes of the series she collaborated on with graphic artist Clément Oubrerie, also the co-director of the film:

Incarcerated Knowledge is a documentary by AIAC’er Dylan Valley who has followed a man, Peter, from the first day of his release from South Africa’s most notorious prison. Having foresworn his membership of the powerful ‘28s’ gang, Peter is intent to reintegrate himself back into his community through his passion for Hip-Hop:

And The New World is a story written and directed by Jaap van Heusden about a Dutch woman (Bianca Krijgsman) whose life is changed by an Ivorian refugee (Issaka Sawadogo) who is held “in transit” at the detention center for asylum seekers where she works as a cleaner. Here’s a clip:

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.