5 New Films to Watch Out For, N°28

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

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

What Portugal forgets

In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

Trump tariffs and US Imperialism

Trump’s April 2025 tariff blitz ignited market chaos and deepened rifts within his own coalition. Beneath the turmoil lies a battle between technocrats, ultranationalists, and anti-imperial populists, all vying to reshape—or destroy—American global power.