Film no.7 La Grande Case Bamileke

La Grande Case Bamileke, Jean Paul Ngassa, Cameroon, 1965

A short documentary exploring the rituals and customs of the Bamileke tribe in Cameroon.

Jean Paul Ngassa
The history of Cameroonian cinema starts in Paris with a documentary by Jean-Paul Ngassa covering the situation of Cameroonian students in France, Aventure en France (1962). This same topic inspired Thérèse Sita Bella, the director of Tom-Tom in Paris (1963). On return to his country, Ngassa started working for the State service producing propaganda films, such as the 1965 film La Grande Case Bamiléké and the 1970 documentary Une nation est née. —Cameroon Online

Film no.6 Reves de Poussiere

Reves de Poussiere, Laurent Salgues, Burkina Faso, France, 2006

From France, Canada and Burkina Faso, French writer-director Laurent Salgues’s Rêves de poussière is a vivid depiction of hard labor, sustained by hopes for a better future, and poverty. Mocktar, a Nigerian farmer, has just lost his youngest daughter. Burdened by guilt for inadequately providing for wife and family, he travels to northeast Burkina Faso to work in the gold mines. An official explains, “The gold rush is over.” His response gets Mocktar hired: “I’m just looking for a job.” The film opens with an extreme long-shot of sand being blown by wind screen-right across the landscape. A human figure enters the frame and proceeds, by foot, screen-left—in the face of the wind. This is Mocktar symbolically braving life’s misfortunes. Neocolonialist exploitation of African resources and peasants contributes to African poverty. “The gold we risk our lives for,” Mocktar himself notes later on, “is for white people.” At the camp, Mocktar is attracted to Coumba, who has lost family members in a shaft collapse there, and whose young daughter Mocktar helps with his pay, redeeming himself from guilt over his own recent loss. At the last, in an extreme long-shot, he is shown journeying home. -Dennis Grunes

With his deeply cathartic and intransigent drama Dreams of Dust, Laurent Salgues takes an unflinching look at life in a hellish African gold-mining community. For countless hours, days and weeks on end, the employees of a mining camp burrow long tunnels into the sand in search of increasingly elusive nuggets. When one is found, economic circumstances improve for all; when the tunnels collapse, the workers lose their lives, new teams are reeled in, and the process begins anew. Yet Salgues unveils a core of dignity at the story's center, personified by two characters - the Nigerian farmer Mocktar, still reeling from a personal tragedy, who nevertheless demonstrates astonishing tenacity by climbing into the scorching tunnels each morning; and his female counterpart, the gorgeous Coumba, also reeling from a disaster - the sudden, unexpected death of most of her family, and her consequent need to raise her daughter on her own. Amid a difficult, threatening environment, these two quickly find soulmates and a ray of hope in one another. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Laurent Salgues
Laurent Salgues was born in France on September 13th 1967. After a master’s in audiovisual studies at l'École Supérieure d'Audiovisuel (ESAV) in Toulouse, he perfected his screenplay writing at the Conservatoire Européen d'Ecriture Audiovisuelle (CEEA) and at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). From 1992 to 1996, he directed three short subjects (“Eternité moins cinq”, “Camilio” and “La femme à l’ombrelle”). Since 2003, he has been a screenplay writer for television and film. “Rêves de poussière” is his first full-length feature film. -

Film no.5 Yaaba

Yaaba, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso, 1989

“Yaaba” in Mooré means grandmother. “Yaaba” is also the name that a twelve year-old boy Bila gives Sana, an old woman abandoned and rejected by the whole village. Yaaba is above all a story about a friendship which is born and which grows between two people in a primitive village society, where we see man as he really is, good, bad, generous, intolerant. Yaaba began with the memory of a tale of my own childhood and of a sort of nocturnal education. Where I come from, this nocturnal education is acquired between the age of seven and ten, just before falling asleep, if one is lucky enough to have a grandmother. –Idrissa Ouedraogo, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs

Yaaba first brought international recognition to Idrissa Ouedraogo, winning the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at FESPACO, and the Sakura Gold Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Yaaba is indeed one of the finest African films. A beautifully filmed morality tale of superstition and intelligence, it touchingly conveys the humanity of its characters and offers a message of tolerance. And it is one of the few African films to have achieved a measure of commercial distribution: in France it sold close to 300,000 seats.

Yaaba distinguishes itself from Western films set in Africa by a whole set of characteristics that make it a distinctly African film: characters, setting, pacing, language, music, and last, but certainly not least, finance. Yaaba takes us to an all-African context where we come to know a wide range of distinctly drawn characters. The film focuses on people and their interactions rather than the setting. The camera allows us to see the beauty in their faces. Yaaba is set in the Sahel, which holds no particular attractions or excitement: the fauna is limited; we never get to see any game; the desert does not threaten rapid death, even if droughts are a recurring calamity; nor are there any dangers lurking in the dark. In stark contrast to Western films, Yaaba follows a slow peasant mode: Ouedraogo takes his time with long scenes, the camera leisurely pans the wide open landscape, following the slow progress of characters dwarfed by the vast expanse, e.g. Sana on her way to the healer. In this respect Yaaba follows a pattern established by Gaston Kaboré in Wend Kuuni , the pioneering attempt to "Africanize" film language by unfolding at a measured pace consonant with the time-honored customs and seasonal rhythms of African village life. - Film Reference

Idrissa Ouedraogo
Idrissa Ouedraogo is one of Africa’s most prolific filmmakers. His early films are remakable in their ability to communicate through imagery. Poko, Les Ecuelles (The Wooden Bowls), Les Funerailles du Larle Naba (The Funeral of Larle Narba), Ouagadougou, Ouga deux roues (Ouagadougou, Ouga Two Wheels), and Issa le tisserand (Issa the Weaver) appeal to a multi-lingual audience without using dialogue or voice-over narration. Although his subsequent films incorporate dialogue, Ouedraogo’s talent for creating meaning with images remains a hallmark of his work.

Ouedraogo’s first commercial success, Yaaba (Grandmother), narrates the story of two young children who befriend an old woman wrongly accused of malevolent sorcery. This film exemplifies Ouedraogo’s interest in the multiple ramifications of individual choices. It also demonstrates Ouedraogo’s skill at adapting the poetics of African oral tales to contemporary cinema. Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike notes that Ouedraogo “fuses the neorealist penchant for eliciting polished performance from nonprofessionals with the African narrative tradition of the griot… as in the oral tradition, a story’s interest and attraction for an audience depend upon how creatively a storyteller embellishes what he has heard or taken from his own experience.” Ouedraogo’s humor, wit, and keen sense of drama in Yaaba earned him international acclaim as an exceptional storyteller and filmmaker.

Ouedraogo’s second big success was Tilai (The Law). At the film’s beginning, the protagonist, Saga, leaves his village. His life away from home is left out of the narrative, which speaks to Ouedraogo’s commitment to rural life. Saga returns to find that his father has married the woman he loves, Nogma. Nogma and Saga decide to disobey the law and escape to another village. Saga’s brother, Kougri, also refuses to follow his father’s order to punish Saga with death. Ouedraogo sympathizes with young villagers’ desires for change, but treats his elder characters with sensitivity. The film depicts the injustices of certain traditional laws in addition to the difficulties involved in defying them. At the same time, Ouedraogo deeply respects his country’s cultures, and sides with their battles for self-preservation.

Although Ouedraogo often critiques strict traditional laws, his love for his African heritage is clear in his films. His appreciation for African traditional life is expressed poignantly in Un cri du coeur (A Cry from the Heart). Here, a young boy named Moctar moves from his village in order to live with his middle-class parents, who have immigrated to France. Pained by his nostalgia for his village, and especially for his grandfather, Moctar has difficulty adjusting. When he has visions of a hyena on the streets, he alarms his parents, who hoped that France would provide Moctar with better opportunities. Un cri du coeur, like numerous African literary works, examines the affection shared between the older African generation and their grandchildren. When Moctar’s hyena, a strong figure in African folklore, appears for the last time, it takes the form of his dear grandfather.

In the context of African cinema, Ouedraogo’s films have been especially successful. He is committed to filming the specific realities of his home country, yet his themes of fidelity, resistance, transformation, and the recovery of traditions have touched diverse, world-wide audiences. —Film Reference

Film no.4 Buud Yam

Buud Yam, Gaston Kabore, Burkina Faso, 1997

Burkina Faso filmmaker Gaston Kabore revisits the characters from his acclaimed 1982 debut Wend Kuuni in this drama with fantasy elements. Wend Kuuni (Serge Yanogo) was the son of a sorceress who was raised by foster parents and grew up to become a respected citizen in his village. But one day his sister Pughneere (Amssatou Maiga) falls ill, and many of his neighbors are convinced Wend's heritage in the black arts are to blame. Wend sets forth on a long and eventful journey to find a healer who can restore his sister to health, and in turn restore his good name. Buud Yam was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1997 Pan African Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In an early 19th century African village, Wend Kuuni - a young man, lives with his adopted family after his mother was killed as a witch. When Pughneere - his adopted sister - becomes ill, the villagers suspect Wend Kuuni. In order to save Pughneere's life (and his own) he must set out on a journey to find a healer. His quest brings him in contact with people around him and is a journey of self-discovery. - IMDb

Gaston Kabore

Kabore started out as a history student at the Centre d’Etudes Superieures d’Histoire d’Ouagadougou and continued his studies in Paris where he received an MA. During his studies he became interested in how Africa was portrayed abroad, which then led him, in 1974, to study cinematography at the Ecole Superieure d’Etudes Cinematographiques. Further inspiration came upon viewing Ousmane Sembene’s Xala, which he saw as an example of how film could be used to express African culture. After returning to Africa, Kabore was made director of the Centre National du Cinema and taught at the Institut African d’Education Cinematographique. Along with students under his direction there he made his first film, ‘Je Reviens De Bokin’ (I Come From Bokin).

Kabore went on to produce practical documentaries such as 1978’s, ‘Stockez et conservez les grains’ (Store and Conserve the Grain), which focused on agrarian concerns. Another kind of documentary he made in this early period, ‘Regard sur le VI’eme FESPACO’ (A Look at the 6th FESPACO) evidenced his concern for and promotion of African film. Kabore’s first feature, Wend Kuuni (1982) was a breakthrough for African cinema notable for the way it translated African oral tradition to the screen. Next, Kabore returned to address the issues surrounding African cinema with a documentary, ‘Props sur le cinema’ (Reflections on the cinema) (1986). The short film featured two significant African directors, ‘Souleymane Cisse’ from Mali and Mauritania born Med Hondo discussing the problems facing filmmakers on the continent. He followed this with his second feature, Zan Boko (1988) which tells the story of a wealthy businessman who takes away ancestral land from a poor village peasant in order to build a swimming pool. The film focuses not only on the conflict of class struggle but also that of tradition and modernity in postcolonial civilization.

Before his next feature Kabore again returned with a short documentary, Madame Hado (1991), about Mrs. Hado, a celebrated Burkinabe singer and dancer. Kabore was then invited to contribute to the BBC’s ‘Developing Stories’, a series of six films by talented filmmakers from the developing world focusing on environmental and developmental issues. He offered Rabi (1993), which won the first prize for young people’s films at the Okomedia International Ecological Film Festival. Another mark of Kabore’s international recognition was his participation in the film, Lumière and Company (1995) in which 40 directors from around the world were asked to make a short film with the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumiere Brothers. His most recent feature Buud Yam (1997) was the 1997 grand-prize winner of the FESPACO. —IMDb

Film no.3 The Gods Must Be Crazy

the Gods Must Be Crazy, Jamie Uys, Botswana, South Africa, 1980

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 film, written and directed by Jamie Uys. The film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series of films. Set in Botswana and South Africa, it tells the story of Xi, a Sho of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian San farmer Nǃxau) whose band has no knowledge of the world beyond. The film is followed by four sequels, the final three of which were made in Hong Kong. The film has a huge cult following.

The film is a collision of three separate stories—the journey of a Ju/'hoansi bushman to the end of the earth to get rid of a Coca-Cola bottle, the romance between a bumbling scientist and a schoolteacher, and a band of guerrillas on the run.

Xi and his tribe of San/Bushmen relatives are living well off the land in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one in the tribe has unfulfilled wants. One day, a glass Coke bottle is thrown out of an aeroplane and falls to earth unbroken. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be another boon from the gods—-Xi's people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one bottle to go around. This exposes the tribe to a hitherto unknown phenomenon, property, and they soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: jealousy, envy, anger, hatred, even violence.

Since it has caused the tribe unhappiness on two occasions, Xi decides that the bottle is an evil thing and must be thrown off of the edge of the world. He sets out alone on his quest and encounters Western civilization for the first time. The film presents an interesting interpretation of civilization as viewed through Xi's perceptions. - Wikipedia

Jamie Uys

He made his debut as a film director in 1951 with the Afrikaans-language film Daar doer in die bosveld. He directed 24 films in total.

Uys received the 1981 Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film de Comedy Vevey for The Gods Must Be Crazy, and in 1974 he received the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for best documentary for Beautiful People.

The two Beautiful People films were documentaries about the plant and animal life in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, especially desert creatures. A highlight of the film included a scene with elephants, warthogs, monkeys and other animals staggering around after eating rotten, fermented marula fruit.

Jamie Uys' biggest and best known movie was The Gods Must Be Crazy. In this movie he featured a bushman called N!xau in the lead role. This was a comedy in which a Coke bottle that was thrown out of an aeroplane, fell in the Kalahari Desert and was found by the San tribe. As this was the only "modern" object in their world, it led to strife and it was decided that the bottle had to be returned to the Gods, who must have sent it in the first place. The character played by N!xau was given the task to return it. The movie generated massive word-of-mouth success in America, Japan, Europe, and other territories, with the movie rights initially being sold to 45 countries.^[1]It spawned a less successful sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II.

Uys earlier made another movie set substantially in the Kalahari Desert. This is Lost in the Desert, and tells the story of 8-year-old Dirkie Hayes' efforts to survive in the desert after surviving a plane crash, whilst his father Anton mounts increasingly desperate efforts to find him. As well as directing the movie, Jamie Uys also played the part of Anton, and his son Wynand Uys played the part of Dirkie. Some early sources and credits name the director and actor of Anton's part as Jamie Hayes, and name Wynand Uys as Dirkie Hayes; but the relatively recent DVD release of the movie is attributed to their real names.

Uys' other well-known movie was Funny People in 1977, which was a comedy in the same genre as Candid Camera in the U.S., putting unsuspecting people in embarrassing positions. These included a talking postbox, with the voice of a man claiming to be trapped inside, who asks a passer-by for help. When the passer-by returns with his friends, the 'talking' postbox is silent, and his friends accuse him of being drunk. The sequel, Funny People II was released in 1983, and features a young Arnold Vosloo, who has since found fame in Hollywood.

Film no.2 Rachida

Rachida, Yasmina Bachir, Algeria, 2002

Algiers during the worst years of terrorism. Rachida is a beautiful young teacher who lives and works in a popular neighbourhood of Algiers. One morning, as she goes to work without wearing a veil, she is taken to task by a group of terrorists, which includes one of her pupils, Sofiane. They tell her to plant a bomb in her school. She refuses in spite of her fear. Out of anger, the leader of the gang shoots her in the stomach. They all run away leaving her to bleed to death in the neighbourhood deserted by its frightened inhabitants… Miraculously Rachida survives. But she decides to leave Algiers and to seek refuge in the village of a colleague of hers, Yasmina, who lends her a house. She moves in with her mother, who is also a disgraced woman because she is divorced. –Cannes Film Festival

The first full-length feature film by Yamina Bachir evokes memories of the worst atrocities of the terror in Algeria. The young teacher Rachida is teaching at a school in Algiers, when she is stopped in the street by a group of youths who demand she take a bomb and place it in the school. She recognizes one of the terrorists and refuses. Then she is cold-bloodedly shot and left for dead. Miraculously, she survives. To recover, she hides with her mother in a village far from the city. But terrorism is unavoidable there too. There are no safe havens in Algeria. Rachida is a moving story about a community - and above all about the women in it - under the threat of terror. It's a world where you can be kidnapped, raped, shot, where an unmarried woman with a scar on her belly can't go to a bathhouse, because people might think she has had a Caesarean. — (2003 International Film Festival Rotterdam)

Yamina Bachir

Yamina Bachir-Chouikh began her film career as assistant editor in the early 1970s. Her career then evolved gradually. She first became editor and worked on many Algerian films and documentaries Algerians, working with directors like Touita Okasha, Lagta Abdelkader, Ahmed Rachedi or her husband Mohamed Chouikh. As well as working as an editor she wrote several screenplays. In 1976, she collaborated with Merzak Allouache on his first feature Omar Gatlato and in1982 she wrote the screenplay for Sandy Wind directed by Mohamed Lakhdar Hamina .

In 1996, she wrote the screenplay for Rachida managing to turn to turn it into her first feature film five years later. manages to turn it five years later. For her first feature film as director, Yamina Bachir-Chouikh did not choose an easy subject. Rachida evokes the terror experienced by the people of Algeria in the 1990s through the destiny of a young 20 year old woman who is a victim of an attack leaving her to take refuge in the countryside.

Film no.1 Harragas

Harragas, Merzak Allouache, Algeria, 2008



Set in the northern Algerian port city of Mostaganem. The title refers to the hordes of refugees, the ‘Harragas’, who smuggle themselves out of the country via any means possible. Here we meet one such group, Rachid, Nasser and Imene who pay a smuggler, Hassan, to take them to Spain in his rickety boat. Along with a group of African and Arab migrants, they are risking all they have to cross the stormy Straits. –IMDb

A handful of people looking for a new life find their journey has taken them to a dangerous place in this drama from filmmaker Merzak Allouache. Algerians use the word "harragas," which means "to burn," as slang for leaving the country illegally, the phrase coming from a common practice by refugees of burning their identification papers if they're about to be captured by authorities. Rachid (Nabil Asli) has been talking for years about leaving Algeria and running away to Europe, but it's not until his best friend Omar commits suicide that Rachid takes action. Rachid, his friend Nasser (Seddik Benyagoub) and Omar's sister Imene (Lamia Boussekine) pay Hassan (Okacha Touita) to ferry them across the water to nearby Spain in his boat. But while Hassan is happy to take their money, he makes it clear they travel at their own risk, and the trip takes a dangerous turn when they're intercepted by Mustapha (Samir El Hakim), a corrupt police officer who has his own ideas about dealing with illegal immigrants. Harrages was screened as part of the "Venice Days" program at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival. –Rovi

Merzak Allouache

Born in Algiers, Merzak Allouache grew up during the Algerian struggle for independence. He studied filmmaking at Paris’s celebrated IDHEC, and quickly moved on to directing feature films, documentaries, and television programs. Omar Gatlato (1976), his first feature film, set in the neighborhood of Bab el-Oued in Algiers, was such a success that it changed the course of Algerian cinema. The popularity of Omar Gatlato with Algerian audiences demonstrated to the Algerian film industry that its public had an appetite for complex films that dealt with the realities of Algerian contemporary society, opening the door to other films of the same ilk. In 1994 Merzak returned to this same neighborhood to film Bab el-Oued City. The film captured the beginnings of the civil war that was then spreading across Algeria. Bab el-Oued City garnered the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes in 1994, as well as the grand prize at the Arab Film Festival in Paris. During a career that has spanned thirty years, Merzak Allouache’s films continue to examine the complex history that ties France to its former North African colonies, giving us characters full of intelligence and dignity, caught between their French and Algerian identities. Merzak’s other films include Adventures of a Hero/Aventures d’un heros (1978), The Man Who Watched Windows/L’Homme qui regardait les fenêtres (1982), and A Love in Paris/Un amour à Paris (1988). In 1989 he made Following October/L’après-octobre, a documentary about the riots that took place in the suburbs of Paris in 1988.— Harvard Film Archive