In no particular order, here are another 10 films — still in production, recently completed or already making the rounds — we hope to see one day. All of them documentary films this week. First up, Electrical Rites in Guinea-Conakry, Julien Raout and Florian Draussin’s music documentary on the omnipresence, the appropriation and the different roles of the electric guitar in Guinea’s musical landscape. Trailer above. Next, Le Chanteur de l’Ombre (“Singer from the shadow”) is Yann Lucas’s portrait of maloya singer Simon ‘Dada’ Lagarrigue, “pillar of the culture of Réunion” (film pitch), and the role Dada played in the political and union fights in the French département d’outre-mer during the seventies and eighties:

In Revolution under 5′ Rhida Tlili tails a group of Tunisian street artists (Ahl el Kahf) in the wake of the ousting of Ben Ali:

Cinéma Inch’Allah! is a film about four Belgian-Moroccan friends who grew up making movies; the documentary follows the production process of their latest film. Promising trailer in French:

The Last Hijack is a film about two Somali cousins — “both a feature-length documentary and an online transmedia experience, which offer the viewer a unique and original way to explore the story of Somali piracy from different perspectives,” according to the production’s very serious notes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VUGcQv10Mk

La vie n’est pas immobile (“Life isn’t immobile”) is Senegalese director Alassane Diago’s portrait of Houleye Ba, leader of a group of “indignées” women who stand up against their men’s decision over what will happen to their land. No English subtitles yet:

Arian Astrid Atodji put to film the villagers of Koundi’s (East Province, Cameroon) decision to organise a union and to create a cocoa plantation to be able to depend on themselves, very much aware of the riches they sit on. Koundi, Le Jeudi National (“Koundi, National Thursday” — a reference to the monthly day on which the villagers all work on the development of the plantation) is a film from 2011 but only recently surfaced at international film festivals. As yet, no English subtitles either:

In Letters from Angola Dulce Fernandez delves into the lives of six Cubans (men and women) and their relation with, and participation in, the Angolan War for Independence:

Documented over eight years, Afrikaner Girl is Annalet Steenkamp’s first feature length documentary. It’s a portrait of a South African family (her family) — four generations of Afrikaners in rural South Africa:

And finally, also set in rural South Africa (Eastern Cape), is Tim Wege’s King Naki and the Thundering Hooves. Here’s the official trailer, but watch this 12 minute fragment:

Next week: more fiction.

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.