New Films
This list is partly self-indulgent. It is also a way–hopefully weekly–for me to keep an online
Film
Adapting African literature for the screen
In a recent video interview (first spotted on film blog Shadow and Act), Kenyan film director
Cyberpunk Thriller
Zoo City is set in an alternate Johannesburg, where criminals or those who have serious moral failings, get landed with an animal familiar as a permanent attachment.
No one wants to talk about “the disease”
"Life Above All" has an unbelievable plot and heavy-handed social commentary, but Khomotso Manyaka's excellent performance and a strong supporting cast redeem it.
The documentary imaginery
At the recent Film Africa film festival in London, the new Ethiopian feature film “Atletu” (The
The Northern Ireland Connection
A new film challenges the “rainbow nation” narrative, highlighting South Africa's unfulfilled transformation. It involves local filmmakers, with 10% of profits supporting Cape Town's activists.
Music Break. Fatima Al Qadiri
Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised musician and artist Fatima Al Qadiri just premiered her new EP, “Genre-Specific Xperience,” in
Omar Sy, French movie icon
By Abdourahman Waberi Released only a week ago, ‘Intouchables’ the film (by Eric Toledano & Olivier
Fighting somebody else's war
By Basia Lewandowska Cummings We British are very good at honoring the dead. Last Friday Prime
The silence between portraits
Number 17 in our 'Found Objects': The short documentary, 'Mr. Mkhize,' by photographers Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
Denzel Washington is a Cape Town cop
When Hollywood comes to our doorstep they use Cape Town as a cheap stand in for somewhere else. We don't get to see our city on screen; represented authentically.
Soccer movies about poor, brown people
African football is often depicted with gloom, while European football is either reduced to hooliganism or celebrated through nostalgic 'greatest hits' and childhood wonder on film.
'Julius Malema sets the cultural agenda'
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-kUhrBGVS8&w=600&h=369]
Viva Kinshasa
One of the most exciting films to come out of the continent recently is the Congolese
The films of Sarah Maldoror
Maldoror on filmmaking: "To make a film means to take a position ... I make films so that people—no matter what race or color they are—can understand them."
R.I.P. Dieudonné Kabongo
The Belgian-Congolese comedian, actor and musician Dieudonné Kabongo has passed away.
Black Power Mixtape
A critic of the documentary film, "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975," concludes that as an insight into black power, the documentary is utterly incoherent and useless.
'The Invader'
The dramatic opening scene of Belgian filmmaker and artist Nicolas Provost’s new feature film, “The Invader,”
‘The Art of El Anatsui’
Film Review by Elliot Ross* Making a film about an artist whose work is as beautiful
A Long List of New Films
I'm still waiting for that entrepreneur who'll start a Netflix for African films. I'll be a customer.