Mudra-Afrique(NaN)

Algérie Tours Détours(fr)

A documentary road movie with René Vautier In the aftermath of Algeria's independence, René Vautier, a militant filmmaker, considered "the dad" of Algerian cinema, set up the cine-pops. We recreate with him the device of itinerant projections and we travel the country in ciné-bus (Algiers, Béjaïa, Tizi Ouzou, Tébessa) to hear the voices of the spectators on the political situation, youth and living conditions of men and Of women today.

Karmen Gei(fr)

Bizet's Carmen gets a modern adaptation. Seducting, provocating, sensual. All the ingredients for a perfect drama. With her charm, Karmen gets out of many situations.

Déjà le sang de mai ensemençait novembre(fr)

The essay by René Vautier, "Déjà le sang de Mai ensemençait Novembre", starts with the recapitulation of the representations of Algeria throughout the history of visual arts in France in an effort to explore the causes for the quest for independence.

Binta and the Great Idea(fr)

Binta, a little girl from Senegal, tells us about the everyday life in her village, the importance of education for the girls, and about her father's great idea to make the world a better place.

Le radeau de la Méduse(fr)

Iranian Iradj Azimi directed this French historical drama re-creating events depicted in the famous 1819 painting The Raft of the Medusa by Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). The ill-fated voyage of the frigate Medusa begins when it departs Rochefort for Senegal in 1816. After striking a sandbar off the African coast, 150 civilians row safely to shore, but Captain Chaumareys (Jean Yanne) orders 140 soldiers and sailors onto a raft (minus supplies) and has it cut loose. Only 14 survive from the 140, creating a scandal back in France. Gericault (Laurent Terzieff) later talks to three of the survivors while researching his painting. Work on this film began in 1987, but sets destroyed by Hurricane Hugo caused delays, so the film was not completed until 1990. However, it then remained undistributed until an incident in which writer-director Azimi slashed his wrists in front of French Ministry of Culture officials.

Io Capitano(it)

Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean.

Laamb(en)

The rules are simple in Senegalese wrestling: First man down, loses. The sport derives from ritual manhood trials and has developed into a national sport with packed stadiums and huge prizes. Today, the fight is supplemented with bare knuckle boxing but without any protection. The 22­-year-­old cattle herder Ndoff has been chosen to compete in an annual talent event in Dakar, and faces a possible breakthrough as a pro wrestler. LAAMB is the story of a sport filled with myths and extreme voodoo rituals, and a modern tale about fighting one’s way out of poverty.

Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work(fr)

It is the evocation of a life as brief as it is dense. An encounter with a dazzling thought, that of Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist of West Indian origin, who will reflect on the alienation of black people. It is the evocation of a man of reflection who refuses to close his eyes, of the man of action who devoted himself body and soul to the liberation struggle of the Algerian people and who will become, through his political commitment, his fight, and his writings, one of the figures of the anti-colonialist struggle. Before being killed at the age of 36 by leukemia, on December 6, 1961. His body was buried by Chadli Bendjedid, who later became Algerian president, in Algeria, at the Chouhadas cemetery (cemetery of war martyrs ). With him, three of his works are buried: “Black Skin, White Masks”, “L’An V De La Révolution Algérien” and “The Wretched of the Earth”.

Rocking Poponguine(fr)

A tale of growing up in 1960s Senegal. Bacc narrates his early years of living in Popenguine, a town divided by culture and musical tastes.

René Vautier, le rebelle(fr)

Les Enfants de Novembre(ar)

In the streets of the Casbah of Algiers, an FLN fighter pursued by the colonial police hands over confidential documents to Mourad, an Algerian child shouting newspapers who must at all costs pass them on to the resistance. But the police are on their trail and will do anything to get them back.

Archie Shepp chez les Touaregs(ar)

Toubab Bi(fr)

Soriba Samb is a Senegalese who has just received a much sought after internship to study filmmaking in Paris. Soriba heads to Paris, accompanied by the five-year old son of a friend who he believes to be still living in Paris. On arrival he struggles to find the boy’s father. In addition to coping with his new internship, Soriba has to also spend time tracking down the boy’s father ‘Issa’.

N'Diangane(wo)

This film presents a harsh critique of the Koranic teaching through the tragic story of a small talibé, student of a beggar.

The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting(fr)

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

Eia pour Césaire(fr)

Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).

Wonderful World(en)

Ben Singer is a failed children's folk singer, a career proofreader, a less-than-extraordinary weekend dad, and perhaps the most negative man alive. Floundering in all aspects of his life, Ben's only comfort comes from regular chess games and friendly debates on game theory with his Senegalese roommate Ibou. When Ibou is suddenly struck ill, Ben's pessimistic worldview seems unequivocally confirmed. It takes an extended visit from Ibou's sister Khadi for Ben to realize that cynicism may be all a matter of perspective.

Stories of the Revolution(en)

Directed by Ahmed Bedjaoui et al.

Xala(wo)

A rich businessman in Senegal is cursed with crippling erectile dysfunction upon the day of his marriage to his third wife; the only cure is brutal public humiliation.

Casting a Light on the Dance of Darkness(en)

“Butoh,” literally “dance of darkness,” is an avant-garde form of dance from Japan that few know about, and even fewer practice. As its only practitioner in Singapore, Xue tells us how she fell in love with this obscure, yet liberating, art form.