AfricaIs aCountry

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

6450 Article(s) by:

Sheila Adufutse

Sheila Adufutse is a feminist activist and trained as a project manager.

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The good Senegalese woman

Madame Faye Sall is the first woman of Senegalese birth and ancestry to become First Lady of Senegal. Some women in Senegal hope it will affect the debate about women and power there.

Film Review: “The Education of Auma Obama”

Republican party propaganda wants to paint President Barack Obama's Kenyan family as alien to America. In this propaganda, Barack Hussein Obama Snr and the old man's supposed "anti-colonial" and left-wing biases. In this propaganda Kenyans are reduced to anti-American zealots. Yet the strongest impression one gets from the Obama family in Branwen Okpako's beautiful, and substantive documentary of Obama's half sister, Auma Obama, is how familiar and American (i.e. the values Republicans proffer of hard work and guile) the Obamas are.

Coup d’Etat is the New Black

Military takeovers are happening so quickly and so fast in Africa, and instapundits need back facts. We are here to help. Here are some basic facts about Guinea-Bissau, site of the latest coup d’etat.

The 19th New York African Film Festival: ‘Playing Warriors’

It’s not hard to see why Rumbi Katedza’s first feature has been described as a Zimbabwean ‘Sex and the City’. Four high-flying twenty-something women spend a good chunk of the movie hanging out in trendy Harare bars talking sex, dating, and marriage. There’s kissing, laughing, gossiping and some great outfits. Luckily, unlike the HBO series, there’s no annoying voiceover offering throwaway insights every five scenes.

The 19th New York African Film Festival: ‘How to steal 2 million’

In South African director Charlie Vundla’s “How to Steal 2 Million,” Johannesburg is equated with “a jungle.” Main protagonist, middle aged Jack–fresh out of jail and looking for a job and opportunities–compares the city unfavorably to New York City, where, in contrast, people “are in it together.” Mostly shot in empty streets or in dark interiors and at night, the Johannesburg of the film lives up to this characterization. But it’s not just the main character who pines for a projected version of New York City; the film itself longs for its double, adapting and mirroring New York’s association with film noir.

Joyce Banda is President of Malawi

In her first order of business since being inaugurated as Malawi’s new president on Saturday, Joyce Banda fired the country’s top policeman. No reason was given for the firing, but the BBC reports that the police chief, Peter Mukhito, was in charge last year during anti-government protests over the worsening economy.