In the company of coronavirus
What literature can teach us about what happens when the chain that connects human beings to nature is broken.
festivals
The Nigerian and the Lenin Prize
Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph was a prominent left nationalist in Nigeria’s struggle for independence. Then he was forgotten. How do we commemorate him?
Trapped by history
Mexican American director John Gutierrez new film, set in Cape Town, South Africa, touches on colonialism, displacement, and man’s complicated relationship with nature.
The house of migrants
An interview with the filmmakers, Ousmane Samassekou and Aïcha Macky, about their films: two stunning documentaries creating new narratives about migration.
Ethiopian women making movies
The presence of successful female writers, directors, and producers set Ethiopia's film industry apart from Hollywood, Bollywood, and the rest of world cinema.
A compassionate take on an invisible struggle
A new film by South African director Nomawonga Khumalo represents the contradictions and nuances of black women’s interior lives.
Is the future of African auteur cinema streaming?
Imagine if African films could enjoy shooting and editing on the continent, uninhibited by national and international politics.
Upsetting color and its representations
What is one particular place when represented photographically?
Restaging global history
The performative documentary 'Sun of the Soil' restores the historical record of the 'great king' of Mali, Mansa Musa.
Sankara is not dead
Thomas Sankara has emerged as both a lesson on the uncertainties of revolutionary change and the possibilities for people-centered development for the present and future.
The workings of extremism
Nigeria’s 2021 submission to the Oscars probes the psychology and propaganda of militant jihadism through the eyes of two sisters.
Hamba Kahle Sibongile Khumalo
South African singer Sibongile Khumalo (1957-2021) was a musical giant. She also launched her own label and advocated for women's rights.
How Indian cinema shaped East Africa’s urban culture
The 60s, 70s, and 80s are often described as the Golden Age of Indian cinema and Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu had a large number of cinemas devoted to showing films made in Bombay.
Women’s liberation and media in post-independence Tanzania
Fatma Alloo (of the Tanzania Media Women's Association) on how women used the media and cultural spaces to organize and challenge gender norms.
Slam democracy
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has a rigid educational system, largely unchanged from the colonial era. Slam artists and activists are working to open it up to alternative spaces of expression.
Blackness in Amsterdam
At the largest gathering of black people he had ever seen together in Amsterdam, the author, originally from Kenya, wonder why they knew so little of each other.
Identity and displacement in Nigeria
Director Abba T. Makama's 'The Lost Okoroshi,' attempts to unpacks identity through masquerades in an increasingly ethnocentric Nigeria.
Lagos gone to seed
The Nigerian drama 'Òlòtūré,' about sex work and sex trafficking in the country’s commercial capital, which premiered on Netflix, is mostly uncomfortable. And not in a good way.