New Documentaries To Look Out For at the Luxor African Film Festival

The third edition of the Egyptian Luxor African Film Festival again has a wide-ranging programme scheduled for next month. Selected films will be showing in different competitions: Long Narrative, Short Narratives, Short Documentaries and Long Documentary. Below you’ll find a couple of the selected documentaries’ trailers (set in Togo, Senegal, Ghana, Somalia, South Africa, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Angola) that were recently uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo, plus links to the films’ websites — where available.

Nana Benz (2012, 85 min, director Thomas Bölken) | Togo

Touba (2013, Chai Vasarhelyi) | Senegal

Lettres du Voyant (2013, Louis Henderson) is a documentary-fiction about spiritism and technology in contemporary Ghana, which attempts to uncover a mysterious practice called “Sakawa” – internet scams mixed with voodoo magic.

From the same filmmaker, Louis Henderson, also showing is Logical Revolts (2012) | Egypt

Angola Ano Zero (2013, Ever Miranda) | Angola

The River (2013, 86 min, Abdenour Zahzah). During a journey on foot along the Oued El Kebir River, Zahzah encounters mini-societies of people who give us a different picture of Algeria.

Ali’ens: Somalis in Transit (2013, 90 min, Paula Palacios) | Somalia

Emirs in Wonderland (2013, 75 min, Ahmed Jlassi) | Tunisia

Made in Gougou (2013, Latifa Doghri) | Tunisia

Light and Dark (2013, 45 min, Paulene Abrey), a biopic of South African artist Norman Catherine | South Africa

LAFF takes place from 16 March to 24 March. See the Festival’s website for more details.

Further Reading

Not only kafala

Domestic workers in the Gulf typically face a double bind: as a foreign worker, you are governed by kafala laws, while as a female, you are governed by the male guardianship system.

Edson in Accra

It happened in 1969. But just how did he world’s greatest, richest and most sought-after footballer at the time, end up in Ghana?

The dreamer

As Africa’s first filmmakers made their unique steps in Africanizing cinema, few were as bold as Djibril Diop Mambéty who employed cinema to service his dreams.