Ideally, any Westerner who has an interest in African culture and African beats should attend the African Footprint show. As this is not always possible, mainly for monetary reasons, a convenient alternative is now on the market. You can rent or buy the DVD featuring South Africa’s most famous cultural show. But firstly, what is [...]

The Interpreter is a flashy, glooming, huge budget movie featuring a white African expat, from a fictional state called Matobo who works at the United Nations headquarters trying to change the world with the “belief that words and compassion are the better way…even if it’s slower than a gun.”

The story of the 1896 battle of Adwa is being told by Ethiopian-born director Haile Gerima. He explores European colonialism from an African perspective and the significance of the legendary battle that defeated the Italian expansionist movement and kept Ethiopia the one and only African country that was not occupied by a European colonial power [...]

Mortu Nega, like Nowhere in Africa, is a movie that capitalizes on war without directly showing it. It is, as the title suggests, a movie about Those Whom Death Refused – the internally displaced people, the veterans, the widows and the orphans – that survived the independence struggle and are trying to start all over [...]

Yaaba first brought international recognition to African director Idrissa Ouedraogo, winning, among others, the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989. Like other African movie, Yaaba is a movie characterized by pragmatism, simplicity and serenity.

The Price of Forgiveness is structured in such a way that it actually seems to be a story told by a West African griot, which gives the movie authenticity, cohesion and an astonishing authority.It also has a beautiful original soundtrack created by my two favorite Senegalese singers Youssou N’Dour and Wasis Diop.

The movie introduces the viewers to unexplored aspects of African culture and the city life. There are some broad characteristics that make this movie worth watching: it deals with the social dynamics of an African city (most movies about Africa are focused on African villages); it introduces us to the lives of the African middle class; it features young Western-educated rising elite and brings in the discontents of the African proletariat. Moreover, the movie explores the crisis of masculinity, the conflict between generations and the modern African urban social class that is based on individualism and self sustainability.

Dreams of dust (Europe) aka Buried Dreams (North America) aka Reves de Poussiere (Original title in French) Dreams of Dust stars Senegalese actor Makena Diop in the role of the enigmatic Nigerien farmer Moctar (from Niger, not Nigeria) who comes to neighboring Burkina Faso to leave his past behind and try to make a living [...]

Yesterday is the first isiZulu feature film, and the first South African film to receive an Oscar nomination. It was made with the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, M-Net and the National Film And Video Foundation.

Amandla: a revolution in four part harmony is a powerful and emotional documentary about the role music played in resisting and eventually overthrowing apartheid in South Africa.
“If you can’t beat these people physically with weapons, you can scare the shit out of them with songs” Hugh Masekela