New Voices on African Studies
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Exploring issues as varied as women in leadership to rape as a weapon of war, the African Studies Collection includes the highly acclaimed New Release IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA, as well as Sundance Special Jury Prize in Documentary winner THE GREATEST SILENCE: RAPE IN THE CONGO, plus a diverse collection of films from Benin, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mali and other African countries.
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films in this collection
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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!**
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Emmy Award for Best Documentary |
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Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short |
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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.
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London Human Rights Watch FF, Best of Fest |
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Sundance FF, Special Jury Prize: Documentary |
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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Peabody Award |
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Cannes Film Festival, Prix Art et Essai |
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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
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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
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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
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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
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