Africa, Africas
A 3-part film series by Agnes Ndibi, Maji-da Abdi and Regina Fanta Nacro

A rare collection from the emerging voices of African documentary filmmaking, this unique series daringly explores the social and cultural realities experienced in Africa today – including the infiltration of Western beauty standards, territorial displacement and high unemployment. FANTACOCA by Agnes Ndibi (23 minutes) presents the disturbing cultural phenomenon of skin bleaching in Cameroon and the challenge it is now posing on notions of black pride and identity. THE RIVER BETWEEN US by Maji-da Abdi (18 minutes) documents the alarming effects of war on a community of Ethiopian women and children who were forcibly relocated into refugee camps. More

Al’leessi...An African Actress
A film by Rahmatou Keita

Zalika Souley is in her fifties. She lives with four children in a two-bedroom apartment with neither electricity nor water in Niamey, the capital of Niger. But thirty years ago, she was a movie star and Africa’s first professional female actress, working with such celebrated directors as Niger’s Oumarou Ganda and Moustapha Alassane. Souley was once the legendary bad girl of African cinema defying directors with her compelling improvisations. Yet, despite her fame, her life was beset by difficulty. In moving and often heart-breaking interviews, Souley speaks wistfully about how audiences confused her with the women she portrayed – vamps, adulteresses, prostitutes - and how, as her stardom rose abroad, she became a pariah in her own country. More

Anna from Benin
A film by Monique Mbeka Phoba

ANNA FROM BENIN is an extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary 17th year old. Anna is one of 31 children that her father has had with his 5 wives. As the star of her family’s orchestra, the Tek Stars, she went to study in France on scholarship – a rare event in Central Africa, where most girls don’t get the opportunity to get an education. As a result the entire countries hopes are pinned on her success. This beautiful documentary focuses on Anna’s struggles as an independent teenager with a domineering father in Central Africa and as an African teenager in France without the protection of her siblings and her five mothers. More

The Day I Will Never Forget
A film by Kim Longinotto

THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET is a gripping feature documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Kim Longinotto (Divorce Iranian Style and Runaway) that examines the practice of female genital mutilation in Kenya and the pioneering African women who are bravely reversing the tradition. In this epic work, women speak candidly about the practice and explain its cultural significance within Kenyan society. From gripping testimonials by young women who share the painful aftermath of their trauma to interviews with elderly matriarchs who stubbornly stand behind the practice, Longinotto paints a complex portrait of the current polemics and conflicts that have allowed this procedure to exist well into modern times. More

Forbidden Fruit
A film by Sue Maluwa Bruce, Beate Kunath, and Yvonne Zuckmantel

Zimbabwean filmmaker, Sue Maluwa Bruce, breaks long held taboos about sexual identity and lesbian love in African society in her groundbreaking video, FORBIDDEN FRUIT. “What is most remarkable about FORBIDDEN FRUIT is its range of appeal. It opens rural life and village politics in Zimbabwe to a new understanding, which is reconfigured by the love shared by the two women protagonists. To a society hostile to that love, the film responds neither with pleas for tolerance nor condemnation; instead, FORBIDDEN FRUIT exploits passion in the service of transformation. More

God Sleeps in Rwanda
A film by Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman, Narrated by Rosario Dawson

** Emmy Winner for Best Documentary and Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short!** More

	Emmy Award for Best Documentary
	Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
A film by Lisa F. Jackson



Winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize in documentary, this extraordinary film, shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shatters the silence that surrounds the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson travels through the DRC to understand what is happening and why. More

	London Human Rights Watch FF, Best of Fest
	Sundance FF, Special Jury Prize: Documentary

Iron Ladies of Liberia
A film by Siatta Johnson and Daniel Junge, Produced by Henry Ansbacher & Jonathan Stack



After surviving a 14-year civil war and a government riddled with corruption, Liberia is ready for change. On January 16, 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was inaugurated President – the first freely elected female head of state in Africa. Having won a hotly contested election with the overwhelming support of women across Liberia, Sirleaf faces the daunting task of lifting her country from debt and devastation. She turns to a remarkable team of women, appointing them in positions such as police chief, finance minister, minister of justice, commerce minister and minister of gender. More

Mama Wahunzi
A film by Lawan Jirasuradej

In Kenya and Uganda, poor healthcare, disease and economic disparity have created an overwhelming shortage of wheelchairs, with more than 200,000 in demand yearly. In both countries there only exist 5 production shops, where 250 wheelchairs are built yearly. Of these, a staggering 1% are given to women. MAMA WAHUNZI, literally meaning “women blacksmiths” in Swahili, is an inspiring documentary about three disabled East African women who countered conventional wisdom and expectation by learning how to build wheelchairs for themselves and their community. More

The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face
A film by Cathy Henkel, Produced by Jeff Canin & Cathy Henkel

Sexual assault remains the most hidden and the fastest growing crime in the world, and in South Africa the statistics are staggering. Two days before Christmas in 1988, Cathy Henkel’s 59 year-old mother Laura was sexually assaulted and brutally bashed in her home in Johannesburg, South Africa by a local white teenager. Although Laura identified her attacker from a school photograph, the man was never charged, and remained free. For fourteen years, unable to recover, Laura Henkel retreated from her family and rejected contact with the outside world. More

Shouting Silent
A film by Renee Rosen and Xoliswa Sithole

SHOUTING SILENT explores the South African HIV/AIDS epidemic through the eyes of Xoliswa Sithole, an adult orphan who lost her mother to HIV/AIDS in 1996. Xoliswa journeys back home in search of other young women who have also lost their mothers to HIV/AIDS and are now struggling to raise themselves (and, in many cases, their siblings) on their own. More

Simon & I
A film by Beverley Palesa Ditsie and Nicky Newman

SIMON & I is an intimate and inspiring portrait of black South African gay rights activist Simon Nkoli, who died of AIDS in 1998, and his fellow activist and protégé, Bev Ditsie. Chronicling two remarkable decades of activism, their story charts the history of the gay and lesbian liberation movement in South Africa and presents a personal account of the devastating AIDS epidemic in Africa. Bev unfolds their unique relationship using a mixed format of interviews, archival images and newspaper clips, while speaking honestly about the challenges they faced and the difficult issue of sexism within the gay rights movement. More

Sisters in Law
A film by Kim Longinotto, Co-directed by Florence Ayisi

Winner of the Prix Art et Essai at the Cannes Film Festival and screened to acclaim at more than 120 festivals around the world, SISTERS IN LAW is the latest documentary from internationally renowned director Kim Longinotto, co-directed by Florence Ayisi. More

	Peabody Award
	Cannes Film Festival, Prix Art et Essai

Sisters of the Screen
African Women in the Cinema
A film by Beti Ellerson

Exploring the extraordinary contributions of women filmmakers from Africa and the diaspora, Beti Ellerson’s engaging debut intersperses interviews with such acclaimed women directors as Safi Faye, Sarah Maldoror, Anne Mungai, Fanta Régina Nacro and Ngozi Onwurah with footage from their seminal work. With power and nuance, Ellerson also confronts the thorny question of cultural authenticity by revisiting the legendary 1991 FESPACO (Pan-African Festival of Cinema and Television of Ouagadougou), in which diasporian women were asked to leave a meeting intended for African woman only. More

Speaking Out: Women, AIDS and Hope in Mali
A film by Joanne Burke

The fourth installment of Joanne Burke’s critically acclaimed NEW DIRECTIONS series on women's empowerment in developing countries, SPEAKING OUT presents a compelling case study on the impact of AIDS on women from Mali and the devastating effects the epidemic is having in Africa today. This critically acclaimed documentary profiles a remarkable HIV and AIDS support project in Bamako, Mali, sponsored by The Center for Care, Activity and Council for People Living with HIV (CESAC), and three brave women who tirelessly work on behalf of the infected community. More

Warrior Marks
A film by Pratibha Parmar
Executive produced by Alice Walker

WARRIOR MARKS is a poetic and political film about female genital mutilation from the director of A PLACE OF RAGE, presented by the Pulitzer Prize winning author of THE COLOR PURPLE and POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY. Female genital mutilation affects one hundred million of the world’s women and this remarkable film unlocks some of the cultural and political complex-ities surrounding this issue. Interviews with women from Senegal, Gambia, Burkino Faso, the United States and England who are concerned with and affected by genital mutilation are intercut with Walker’s own personal reflections on the subject. More

New Directions: Women of Zimbabwe
A film by Joanne Burke

From award-winning documentarian Joanne Burke's series about women's empowerment in developing countries, WOMEN OF ZIMBABWE focuses on a group of five daring women who have taken up the challenge of creating their own future in the traditionally male field of carpentry. At its center is Fatima Shoriwa, an inspiration to many of her countrywomen. Owner of a thriving carpentry business, she also openly advocates education, family planning, safe sex practices, and economic self-sufficiency for women. The group's other four members are Fatima's apprentices, who range in age from seventeen to twenty-three. More