Africa Is a Country

We watch movies (and trailers) for you

We watch movies (and trailers) for you

By
Dylan Valley

Still from "Out of my hand"

This is the first edition of a new weekly series of posts/listicles we’ll be doing to keep you up to speed with the world of African cinema/TV/online video content. We’ll be sharing news, trailers and complete short films. Welcome to our movie night.

1. Remember director Ava DuVarney’s distribution and exhibition network ARFFM? It’s now an “independent film distribution and resource collective” called ARRAY. It opened its first two films they’re opening last Friday: Sarah Blecher’s “Ayanda” set in Johannesburg and Takeshi Fukunaga’s Liberian immigrant tale “Out of My Hand.”

Here’s a teaser for “Out of My Hand”:

BTW, read an interview with Fukunaga about making “Out of my hand” from our archives.

 

2. The British Film Institute interviewed Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza (he is talented for real) on his new film “Things of the Aimless Wanderer.”

 

3. The trailer for the new film, “Am I Too African to be American or Too American to be African?” (It seems to be from the same genre as “The Neo-African Americans“):

 

4. More trailers: Watch the trailer for “Sembene!” the new documentary about Ousmane Sembene, the “Father of African Cinema”

 

5. Check out this dystopian Kenyan short Monsoons Over The Moon over two parts (HT @ShadowandAct):

 

6. South African performance art duo FAKA have released a new video which they call a “Gqom-Gospel Lamentation for Dick.” (The video was in part inspired by South African pop icon Brenda Fassie’s rendition of the song “From a Distance,” which in itself is worth a rewatch.)

 

7.. Watch Miel a new short film inspired by black migrant experiences by Belgian/Congolese brother and sister team Malkia and Nganji Mutiri.

 

8. “Africa” now has its first superhero TV show (can this first be confirmed?). It’s is a South African production. Here’s a trailer.

 

9. Finally, “The World’s First American Nollywood film” (this must be the week of firsts?), “Pastor Paul,” recently premiered in Ghana. Here’s a teaser:

 

 

Further Reading

The entitlement of Bola Tinubu

The Nigerian presidential candidate’s claim of ’emi lokan’ (it’s my turn) reveals complex ethnic politics and a stagnated democracy. Most responses to it, humor and rumor, reflect how Nigerians enact democratic citizenship.

Father of the nation

The funeral of popular Angolan musician Nagrelha underscored his capacity to mobilize people and it reminds us that popular culture offers a kind of Rorschach test for the body politic.

A city divided

Ethnic enclaves are not unusual in many cities and towns across Sudan, but in Port Sudan, this polarized structure instigated and facilitated communal violence.

The imperial forest

Gregg Mitman’s ‘Empire of Rubber’ is less a historical reading of Liberia than a history of America and racial capitalism through the lens of a US corporate giant.

Africa’s next great war

The international community’s limited attention span is laser-focused on jihadism in the Sahel and the imploding Horn of Africa. But interstate war is potentially brewing in the eastern DRC.

The Cape Colony

The campaign to separate South Africa’s Western Cape from the rest of the country is not only a symptom of white privilege, but also of the myth that the province is better run.

Between East Africa and the Gulf

Political encounters between the Arab Gulf and Africa span centuries. Mahmud Traouri’s novel ‘Maymuna’ demonstrates the significant role of a woman’s journey from East Africa to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Āfrīqāyī

It’s not common knowledge that there is Iran in Africa and there is Africa in Iran. But there are commonplace signs of this connection.

It could happen to us

Climate negotiations have repeatedly floundered on the unwillingness of rich countries, but let’s hope their own increasing vulnerability instills greater solidarity.