Guerilla Grannies

Shot in New York, Cape Town, St Helena and the Atlantic Ocean, Sathima's Windsong, is a lyrical portrait of South African jazz singer, Sathima Bea Benjamin. In her Chelsea Hotel apartment, home for over thirty years, she patches together her journeys, from apartheid's 'pattern of brokenness', to a chance meeting and recording with Duke Ellington in Paris, to making a life in New York. The narrative of her journeys are inter-woven with her music and the musings of folks who know her work. Like her haunting song, Windsong, the film is a meditation on displacement, exile and belonging.

Running With The Beest

Filmmaker Karim Aïnouz decides to take a boat, cross the Mediterranean, and embark on his first journey to Algeria. Accompanied by the memory of his mother, Iracema, and his camera, Aïnouz gives a detailed account of the journey to his father’s homeland, interweaving present, past, and future.

We are living in the time of a heteronormative society that antagonizes Queer people for their Being-ness. In Africa, it is believed that we are un-African to Proudly be Our LGBTQIA+ selves. In this short documentary, we share with you researched origins of modern homophobia and queerphobia, while exposing hidden truths about the English bible. The short is a testament to the harmful effects of colonialism and the dangers of religious indoctrination. This film offers audiences the opportunity to question what we have been told to believe is true about queer people.

Born in Indonesia to Victor Raoul Baron von Lawick and Isabella Sophia Baroness van Ittersum, he developed an early love for animals. He determined that film would be his medium to capture the stunning images of the Serengeti for all animal lovers. Animal researcher Jane Goodall was his wife and collaborator for many years. They wrote and produced many films together. Hugo van Lawick lived and worked on the African plains for more than thirty years. Join van Lawick on his many small and large adventures through the Serengeti, where animals play the leading role. Van Lawick received eight Emmys and numerous other awards for his extraordinary films.

Après la guerre, la guerre continue 1945-1950

In the heart of Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, the waters of Lake Urema explode with the thrashing of a giant crocodile tail. Gorongosa was once known as the place where Noah left his ark: 1,500 square miles of lush floodplains in central Mozambique, packed with wild animals. All around, enormous buffalo, soaring fish eagles, and countless antelopes roam freely. But on closer look, something strange is going on. Fifteen years of civil war has taken a heavy toll and many species have been almost completely wiped out. All the usual top predators and prey are virtually missing, except for one - giant crocodiles and thousands of them. Discover what is being done to bring this African oasis back to its former glory, including perhaps the most ambitious restoration effort ever attempted, with elephants, hippos and scores of zebra, wildebeest, impala and buffalo, being relocated into the park.

In common with many L.A. Rebellion films, Snake touches on such themes as institutionalized racism, colonialism and the plight of women of color. Narrated in the first person by the filmmaker as an epistle to her son, The Snake in My Bed tells Diegu's story as a Nigerian woman in Lagos who is romantically pursed by a German national who has “gone native.” Despite his secretive and duplicitous actions, she eventually agrees to marry him and has his child, only to learn that he is a bigamist with a German wife and child.

This documentary of repressive political realities in Cameroon begins with the 1990 publication of an open letter to President Biya calling for a national conference - and the immediate arrest of the letter's author and publisher. The narration then examines the nation's colonial history, beginning with the first German missionary in 1901, the establishment of schools, French occupation following World War I, the paucity of books written by and published by Cameroonians, and the repression of the CPU, a leftist organization of the 1950s and 1960s. Cameroon and its people are the lark, its feathers plucked first by colonialism and then by native strongmen: 'Alouette, je te plumerai.'

This early travelogue film, made in a Kenyan train station, captures an impromptu musical performance. Some passengers eagerly join in while others sleep—blissfully unaware of the performance taking place around them.

Four students from the President's Leadership Circle at Frostburg State University journey to a remote village in Uganda to discover a radically simple solution to an urgent global problem. What they find there changes their lives in unexpected ways. A Simpler Way is a documentary production from Frostburg State University and Interdependent Pictures that explores the need for simple, affordable solutions to global development issues and the role of personal experience in meaningful, transformative education.

As a child in Burkina Faso, Yacouba was sent away from home to study the Qur'an, where he and his classmates were almost starving. The young boys would trek across miles of wilderness, only to fall and beg at a straw hut for meagre rations. It is from this harsh background that the young farmer became determined to develop techniques that would bring exhausted soil back into production. His efforts have outdone the work of the world's leading scientists and technological advances costing millions of pounds. They may also yet prove crucial to the future of the world's rapidly growing population and global food demands.

A musical trip through southern Africa to the tunes of the post-apartheid generation. Kwaito music originated in the 1950's in the dusty streets of South Africa's townships such as Sophiatown, Pimville and subsequently in Soweto. It is inseparable from the Pantsuela culture of the rebellious youth gangs during the Apartheid regime. Since there was no money for musical instruments or for extravagant costumes, they concentrated on their dancing and singing skills and, turning the streets into their stage. Currently almost fifty years later - Kwaito culture is experiencing a renaissance in a manner completely inconceivable in those days.

A partnership between the Government of Mali and an American agricultural investor may see 200-square kilometers of Malian land transformed into a large-scale sugar cane plantation. Land Rush documents the hopes, fears, wishes, and demands of small-scale subsistence farmers in the region who look to benefit, or lose out, from the deal.

Mögöbalu, Les Maîtres des Tambours d'Afrique

Tears of Africa

Poet, agricultural engineer and revolutionary Amílcar Cabral was born in Guinea-Bissau to Cape Verdean parents. After studying in Portugal, he emerged as the charismatic leader of the anti-colonial struggle against Portuguese rule. With his utopian ideas, he sparked a cultural and an armed uprising that went on to inspire other African liberation movements.

Africa, Europe - Europe and Africa: Surfers live differently on each continent and Africa marks a special place - as surfing is in many places at its very beginnings. 'Beyond - An African Surf Documentary' follows locals along the coast of Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia into their homes, visits their home surf spots and takes a look into their surfing lives. Three months of shooting culminated in a 111 minute long episodic journey on a continent, that has the potential to be the next big thing in surfing.

This cinematic journey into the waters off East Africa chronicles the story behind artist Damien Hirst's massive exhibition of oceanic treasures.

This fascinating film tells the story of one man's struggle to protect a small population of gorillas on the slopes of Mount Kahuzi in Zaire and of his incredible relationship with Kasimir, the great silver-backed male, and his family.