Les Anneaux d'Or

Rwanda was once a country of peace, beauty and fabulous wildlife. Romain Baertsoen arrived there in 1966 and started to film two of Rwanda's secrets, the Bahima tribe and rare mountain gorillas. The Rwandan Civil War shattered the peace in 1994, as warring factions pillaged towns and plundered the forests. Remarkably, the gorillas survived, but the world around them is increasingly uncertain.

Who remembers Mohamed Zinet? In the eyes of French spectators who reserve his face and his frail silhouette, he is simply the “Arab actor” of French films of the 1970s, from Yves Boisset to Claude Lelouch. In Algeria, he's a completely different character... A child of the Casbah, he is the brilliant author of a film shot in the streets of Algiers in 1970, Tahya Ya Didou. Through this unique work, Zinet invents a new cinema, tells another story, shows the Algerians like never before. In the footsteps of his elder, in the alleys of the Casbah or on the port of Algiers, Mohammed Latrèche will retrace the story of Tahya Ya Didou and its director.

An ethnographic documentary following four Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) men during a multi-day giraffe hunt in the Kalahari Desert, filmed during the Smithsonian–Harvard Peabody expedition of 1952–53.

Hans Schomburgk reflects on his life as a researcher. He recounts experiences, adventures, and insights he has gathered over the course of 60 years between Cape Town and Congo. The film shows the changes that Africa has undergone in terms of nature and culture during this period, comparing yesterday and today.

380 kilometers from Nairobi, in the Samburu territory, lies a unique village: Umoja. Defended by a thorn fence, access is strictly forbidden to men. Created in 1991, it offers refuge to women repudiated by their husbands or victims of domestic violence. A nerve center for the community, its school is open to children from other villages, provided their families undertake not to subject them to genital mutilation or early marriage. As the new school year approaches, Jane, co-founder of the community, and Rose, teacher, meet little Samella's parents.

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

Sir Robert Beaumont is behind schedule on a railroad in Africa. Enlisting noted engineer John Henry Patterson to right the ship, Beaumont expects results. Everything seems great until the crew discovers the mutilated corpse of the project's foreman, seemingly killed by a lion. After several more attacks, Patterson calls in famed hunter Charles Remington, who has finally met his match in the bloodthirsty lions.

Silent adventure film

A humorous documentary about a historic hunt in 1929 through the African savannah and Indian jungle with lots of animal footage.

Between 1933 and 1935, the painter Wilhelm Eggert and his wife Dora Kuster traveled the African continent. Their expedition took them from Mediterranean Algiers through the Sahara and parts of the African west coast to the Congo and Kenya. Not only did the couple explore vast stretches of land that were almost completely unknown, at least to private travelers at the time, they also captured this journey on film. A screenable documentary film was compiled from the original 12,000m of film material. In cinemas and film clubs, European audiences were presented with a film that was evidently able to satisfy an interest in foreign, 'wild' cultures and exotic landscapes, albeit one that was always Eurocentric. The spectacular shots of African lifestyles and nature, which in many respects were new to European viewers who were almost completely unfamiliar with Africa, were praised and appreciated precisely because of their supposed authenticity.

In the heart of the Camargue region, in the south of France, Jawad and Belka find freedom in their love of Camargue races. For these young Maghrebi men, the event is more than a simple tradition. Facing off with a bull is an opportunity to establish their place in the arena—and in French society. But at what cost?

Two white Italian actors play Black Rwandans in a fact-based tale set during the Rwanda genocide.

In 1928, Lady Heath became the first person to fly solo from Cape Town to London. Eighty-five years later, Tracey Curtis-Taylor set out in a vintage biplane to fly that adventure again. Following Tracey as she retraces the journey, The Aviatrix is more than just a film about the rapture of flying – it’s a story about living life on your own terms and having the courage and determination to realise your greatest dreams.

The Real Story of Fake Democracy. Filmed over three years in five countries, FREEDOM FOR THE WOLF is an epic investigation into the new regime of illiberal democracy. From the young students of Hong Kong, to a rapper in post-Arab Spring Tunisia and the viral comedians of Bollywood, we discover how people from every corner of the globe are fighting the same struggle. They are fighting against elected leaders who trample on human rights, minorities, and their political opponents.

January 2011 : the revolution bursts in Tunisia, my father’s country. The Tunisian people scream in a rage and I, here in Paris, can feel their revolt vibrating in my heart.

The story of Dian Fossey, a scientist who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought to protect them.

Africa, that huge drop of strange land that hangs from Europe, resembles in many ways that road that only takes the railway route teaching you the back room of factories and cities. Here you can see the planet from behind the scenes. In the African situation, imposed by the rich countries of the north, all the defects of capitalism are condensed and the true nature of the world order is in this disaster.

The first filmmaker arrived in Equatorial Guinea in 1904. The last movie theatre closed in Malabo in the 1990s. In 2011, during the II African Film Festival of Equatorial Guinea, the Marfil Movie Theatre reopened its doors. Florencio, Ángel and Estrada tells us how cinema has been, and is still, present in their lives.

The Aït Atta tribe of the High Atlas mountain range in Morocco preserves their ancestral right of access to the agdal, a communal land management system that dates back hundreds of years. The film follows Ben Youssef family’s arduous transhumance journey from the desert-like landscape of Nkob to the green pastures of Agdal Igourdane, throughout uneven terrain of steep climbs and descents of these High Atlas mountains. They migrate each summer with their 800 goats, donkeys, mules, camels and dogs, as they embark on this formidable journey on foot.