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The Library of African Cinema
When Newsreel launched this collection, it was the first and largest collection of African cinema in the United States — and it remains an unmatched resource today. African cinema offers what mainstream Western media rarely does: Africa rendered in its own complexity, beauty, and contradiction, by filmmakers who know it from the inside. Spanning documentary and fiction, master filmmakers and emerging voices, from Francophone and Lusophone countries to Nigeria's Nollywood to post-apartheid South Africa, these films explore women's rights and gender, the legacies of colonialism, political corruption and civil war, cultural identity, sexuality, and the tensions between tradition and modernity. Many titles come with discussion guides and articles by African filmmakers and scholars, making this an essential resource for African Studies, Cinema Studies, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the continent and its people.
Articles to help you view and teach African cinema written by African filmmakers and scholars are also available.
The Library of African Cinema
43 TitlesAinsi Meurent Les Anges (And So Angels Die)
56 minutes
Everyone's Child
90 minutes, 1996
Faat Kine
121 minutes, 2001
In Dakar, Senegal Faat Kine, an independent, single mother and successful business owner looks back over twenty years of triumphs and hardships -including the betrayals by men in her life. A dramatic tribute to the strength and resilience of African women by Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema.
Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts (Women with Open Eyes)
52 minutes, 1994
Finzan (A Dance for the Heroes)
107 minutes, 1990
Flame
85 minutes, 1996
Monday's Girls
50 minutes, 1993
Tableau Ferraille
85 minutes, 1997
Taafe Fanga (Skirt Power)
95 minutes, 1997
These Hands
45 minutes, 1992
Witches In Exile
79 minutes, 2005
Across Africa, a belief in witchcraft continues to terrorize women: the denunciation, brutal beating, the banishment to an unknown village without family or friends. Witches in Exile is the first film to tell their story and the story of the human rights struggle to find a solution to a practice deeply embedded in tradition and gender economics.
Woubi Cheri
62 minutes, 1998
You Have Struck a Rock!
28 minutes, 1981
Afro@Digital
52 minutes, 2003
Allah Tantou (God's Will)
62 minutes, 1991
Arlit: Deuxième Paris
75 minutes, 2004
Ça twiste à Poponguine (Rocking Popenguine)
90 minutes, 1993
Le Grand Blanc De Lambaréné
93 minutes, 1995
Pièces d'Identites (Pieces of Identity)
93 minutes, 1998
Quand les étoiles rencontrent la mer (When the Stars Meet the Sea)
85 minutes, 1996
Sango Malo (The Village Teacher)
94 minutes, 1991
Le Silence De La Foret (The Forest)
93 minutes, 2003
This film, the first from the Central African Republic, takes us inside the world of the 'pygmies' or more properly BaAka. A well-intentioned school reformer, disgusted by the corruption in his country, attempts to bring modern learning to what appear to him as the last remaining 'noble savages.' But these superbly adapted rain forest hunter gatherers want none of his knowledge.
Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man
52 minutes, 2006
Thomas Sankara rose to power in Burkina Faso in a popularly supported coup in 1983. To symbolize this rebirth, he renamed his country from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, "Land of Upright Men" and launched the most ambitious program for social and economic change ever attempted on the African continent.
La Vie Est Belle (Life is Rosy)
85 minutes, 1987
Fintar o Destino (Dribbling Fate)
77 minutes, 1998
The Hero (O HEROI)
97 minutes, 2005
Winner, best foreign feature, the 2005 Sundance Film Festival
The Hero (O Herói) tells the story of Angola, a nation attempting to reconstruct itself after 40 continual years of anti-colonial and civil warfare, through the story of a veteran who has lost his leg, a prostitute who has lost a child and an orphaned boy.
All About Darfur
82 minutes, 2005
A Sudanese immigrant to the UK returns to her homeland to understand why the seemingly racially harmonious country of her memories has become the scene of one of the worst instances of ethnic cleansing in recent history. What she discovers is that race may be too crude a concept to understand the crisis of Darfur.
Daresalam (Let There Be Peace)
105 minutes, 2000
Guimba the Tyrant
93 minutes, 1995
Liberia: A Fragile Peace
60 minutes, 2006
A chronicle of the period from the departure of Charles Taylor to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first African woman head of state, that presents the difficulties of rehabilitating a nation destroyed by war. As one Liberian so eloquently stated in the film, "We have an historic opportunity to re-create our state, and that's not something most people have in their lifetime."
Liberia: An Uncivil War
102 minutes, 2005
This exciting documentary provides an in-depth, case study of one of the bloody civil wars springing up like brush fires across Africa. An intrepid duo of reporters covers the war from either side though neither side can be said to represent anyone but itself. The film indicts the U.S. for its failure to come to the aid of a country to which it helped give birth.
Long Night's Journey Into Day
94 minutes, 2000
This is Nollywood
56 minutes, 2007
Zan Boko (Homeland)
94 minutes, 1988
Zulu Love Letter
100 minutes, 2004
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission could not heal all the wounds left behind by the apartheid era. Thandeka, a journalist, is still traumatized by the murder of a schoolgirl, which she witnessed years before. She can find no peace before tracking down the perpetrators and finding the body of the schoolgirl so it can have a decent memorial.
The Language You Cry In
52 minutes, 1998
Keita: The Heritage of the Griot
94 minutes, 1995
A young boy and his distant ancestor engage in parallel quests to understand their destinies and to know the meaning of their names. In so doing, Keita makes the case for an "Afrocentric" education, where African tradition, not an imported Western curricula is the necessary starting point for African development.
Wend Kuuni (God's Gift)
70 minutes, 1982
State of Denial
83 minutes, 2003
South Africa is the country with the highest number of HIV+ people in the world. State of Denial puts a human face on the millions affected by introducing us to six South Africans involved with the AIDS epidemic. It shows how they must fight not only the disease, but also the greed of the drug cartels and the incomprehensible inactivity of their own government in order to get life-saving treatment.































