AfricaIs aCountry

There’s an African film festival in Scotland

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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

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.