African Video Collections

Dialogue in English a Maa dialect with English subtitles

Saikati, the Enkabaani.

Produced by Catherine W. Muigai; written and directed by Anne G. Mungai. 1998, 90 min. This is the dramatic story of a young village girl who goes beyond traditional, rigid cultural barriers to become a flying doctor.
Notes: Sequel to Saikati.

Kenya

Women, Masai - Drama - Aeronautics in medicine - Man-woman relationships - Feature films

Enkabaani

Samora Machel: son of Africa. A video by Ron Hallis; produced by Ron Hallis, Joyce Sikakane, Ophera Hallis; director, Ron Hallis. 1989, 29 min. Life of Samora Machel, commander of FRELIMO and first president of Mozambique after independence, told through interviews with Machel himself and others.

Mozambique

Machel, Samora, 1933- - Presidents - Biography - Politics and government

Narration in English; voice-over translations from Portuguese

The sand dams of Kitui-- where there is no water. Director-producer, Martin Kivuva, Richard Quinn; script writer, Martin Kivuva. 2000, 30 min. This documentary highlights the successful efforts of providing water "where there is no water", through the intervention and technical assistance of an NGO, SASOL (Sahelian Solutions).

Kenya

Hydrology - Water resources development – Water supply - NGO projects

Sango Malo. Directed by Bassek Ba Kobhio. 1991, 93 min. A new high school teacher brings turmoil to a rural Cameroonian village when he tries to change the world.

Cameroon

Cameroon fiction (French)

French with English subtitles

Sangoma: Traditional Healers in Modern Society. Directed by Peter Davis. 54 min. Shows how traditional medicine still thrives in South Africa.

South Africa

Traditional medicine

Saraaba. By Amadou Seck. 1981, 86 min. Presents an unsparing indictment of a corrupt older generation and of alienated urban youth.

Senegal

Social life and customs – Feature films

Wolof and French with English subtitles

Utopia

School's out. Producer/director, Dick Bower. [2007, 23 min. Explores the issue of private versus public schools in Makoko, a shantytown in Lagos, Nigeria.
Series: Life series 5

Lagos (Nigeria)

Private schools - Public schools - Squatter settlements - Economic conditions

Life (Bullfrog Films, inc.). Series 5; program 2

Science wages war on hunger: modifying Africa through biotechnology. Producer, Elliot Haimoff; director, Denny Hooten. 2002, 46 min. Documentary on the use of biotechnology to boost food production in Africa.

Africa

Plant biotechnology - Agriculture - Food supply - Documentary films

Scratch, mix and-- ? Tomas Films in collaboration with Acacia Entertainment; co-produced by Abdulkadir Ahmed Said, Bridget Thompson; directed by Abdulkadir Ahmed Said. 2003, 52 min. Features the emergence of rap, kwaito and hip hop in Zanzibar, Johannesburg and Cape Town, together with the musicians who take this music to the youth.

Zanzibar, South Africa

Rap (Music) - Kwaito (Music) - Popular music - Hip-hop (Music)

Searching for Hawa’s Secret. Directed by Larry Krotz. 1999, 47 min. Canadian scientist Frank Plummer discovered that a small group of sex workers in the Nairobi shanty-town seemed to be immune from HIV.

Nairobi (Kenya)

AIDS (Disease) – Research – AIDS vaccines – Prevention and control – Prostitution – HIV Infections – Immunology – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Selbe: one among many (as women see it). Producer, Pierre Hoffman; director, Sali Faye. 1982, 30 min. Due to economic constraints, women in Senegal are often left with the sole responsibility of raising their families. Depiction of one such woman’s struggles under these trying circumstances.
See also: Reassemblage ; Faat Kine ; Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts

Senegal

Women - Family - Economic conditions - Social conditions

Senegal: the power to change. Producer, Solveig Helvik; director, Gerd Inger Polden. 1999, 30 min. The protest against female genital mutilation started with an educational program set up by the United Nations in cooperation with a local NGO. This is a success story which shows that education makes all the difference.

Senegal

Female circumcision - Infibulation - Clitoridectomy - Women’s rights - Women - Social conditions - 20th century - Social life and customs - Documentary films

Various African languages with English subtitles

Combatting female genital mutilation

Sept Nuits et Sept Jours. By Maurice Dorès. 1992, 58 min. This film documents an unusual healing ceremony in Senegal.

Senegal

Lebou (African people) – Healing – Traditional medicine – Rites and ceremonies

Seven nights and seven days – Seven days and seven nights

Servants of love. Producer-script, Mary Otuka. Nairobi. 1999, 15 min. Fr. Godfrey Biseko, a priest from the Diocese of Musoma, Tanzania, is a modern day version of St Francis of Assisi. Together with forty volunteers, who call themselves "Servants of Love", they dedicate themselves to serving the most abandoned and rejected of the society.

Tanzania

Health services accessibility – Documentary films – Poverty – Social conditions - Charity organisations

Shackles of Memory: The Atlantic Slave Trade. 1994, 55 min. From the port of Nantes, located on the French Atlantic coast, more than 1800 slave ships plied their human cargo during the 18th and 19th centuries.

France

Historical films – Slave trade Slaves – Social conditions – Atlantic slave trade

Shadow company. Directed and written by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque. 2006, 86 min. How private military corporations are changing the face of modern warfare.

Equatorial Guinea - Iraq - Sierra Leone

Mercenary troops - History - Documentary films

Shaliah u-shemo Zimnah. sirto shel Mikhah Shagrir. 1993, 50 min.
See also: A song of longing ; Marot ; Ahim shehorim ; The Falashas ; Les enfants de la reine de Saba ; Treacherous journey: my escape from Ethiopia ; The lost Jews: last of the Ethiopian Falashas ; Hidah: masa'le-erets ha-Falashim

Ethiopia - Israel

Jews, Ethiopian - Ethnic relations

Hebrew with English subtitles

Emissary named Zimna

Shelah et ami u-maher. Menasheh Raz. 1999, 60 min.
See also: same as above.

Ethiopia - Israel

Jews - History - 20th century - Emigration and immigration -- Emigration and immigration - Politics and government - Ethnic relations

Shouting Silent. Produced by Xoliswa Sithole. Directed by Renée Rosen. 2002, 51 min. Xoliswa Sithole, an adult orphan who lost her mother to AIDS in 1996, explores the devastation wrought on the orphaned children of South Africa by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

South Africa

AIDS (Disease) – HIV (Viruses) – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – Social aspects – Motherless families – Orphans – Social environment – Women’s health

Sia: le rêve du python. ArtMattan Porductions. La direction de la Cinématographie Nationale de Burkina; un film de Dani Kouyate. 2001, 96 min. An epic drama set in Kombi, a poverty-stricken city dominated by a tyrant king, who in order to bring back prosperity, is advised to sacrifice Sia.

Burkina Faso

Feature films - Legends - Serpent worship -- Drama

Bambara with subtitles in English, French and German

The dream of the python; Le rêve du python

Side by Side: Women Against AIDS in Zimbabwe. 1993, 50 min. Directed and produced by Peter Davis. Now, in the wake of the AIDS pandemic women also serve as care-givers to family and community members afflicted with HIV or AIDS.

Zimbabwe

AIDS (Disease) – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – Documentary films

Women against AIDS in Zimbabwe

Sidet: Forced Exile. Written, produced, and directed by Salem Mekuria. 1991, 60 min. Presents the stories of three Ethiopian women who each sought refuge in the Sudan.

Ethiopia – Sudan

Women refugees – Economic conditions

Tigrinya and Arabic with English subtitles

Sierra Leone's refugee all stars. A film by Zach Niles and Banker White. 2007, 80 min. This dramatic seven-time award-winning film tracks the journey of a group of six musicians who formed a band after being displaced from their home during a brutal decade long civil war.
See also: Salia Koroma: my life story ; Living like a refugee ; Seeing with music ; The African diaspora : a musical perspective

Sierra Leone - Guinea

Refugee All Stars - Reggae music - Rap (Music) - Biography - Musicians - Refugee camps - Documentary films

Si-Gueriki la Reine-Mère. Producer, director, Idrissou Mora Kpai. 2002, 63 min. Si-Gueriki examines patriarchy and the role of women in a polygamous society.

Benin

Bariba (African people) – Family – Social conditions – Documentary films

Bariba and French with English subtitles

Queen Mother – Si-gueriki

The silent crisis. Directed by Amanda Felton. 2005, 26 min. Explores the economic and social crises facing the Central African Republic by examining the country’s ill-equipped health system.
Series: Life series 5

Central African Republic

Public health - Economic conditions - Social conditions - Politics and government, 1979-

English and French with English voice-overs

Life (Bullfrog Films, inc.). Series 5; program 2

The silent world. Script and direction, Albert Wandago. 1993. Describes the activities of the Kenya Society for Deaf Children founded in 1958. The Society is concerned with the education, health, and general welfare of deaf children and has been involved in the setting up of the 35 schools and units for deaf children in Kenya.

Kenya

Kenya Society for Deaf Children - Deaf children - Special education

Simbi nyaima. Director, Albert Wandago; scripted by Jane Mbiti. 2004, 30 min. Simbi is based on an oral story from Nyanza in western Kenya which explains the existence of a mysterious lake by the same name.

Kenya

Legends

Simon & I. Directors, Bev Palesa Ditsie, Nicky Newman. 2001, 52 min. Recounts the lives of two giants in the South African gay and lesbian liberation movement, Simon Nkoli and the filmmaker herself, Bev Ditsie.
Series: Steps for the future

South Africa

AIDS (Disease) - Social aspects - Gay rights

Steps for the future 2

Sipho Hotstix Mabuse. 1998, 25 min. Part of the series, “African Wave, South African Music and Its Influences.”

South Africa

Music – Mabuse, Sipho

South African Music and Its Influences – African Wave

Sisters in law. A film by Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi. 2005, 104 min. A documentary record of a courtroom in Kumba, Cameroon, where a female prosecutor and judge work to put an end to their community’s tacit acceptance of child abuse, wife beating and rape.

Kumba (Cameroon)

Women - Legal status, laws, etc. - Children - Courts - Justice, Administration of - Child Abuse - Rape - Social Justice- Spouse Abuse

English and pidgin English, with English subtitles

Sizwe Bansi is Dead. 60 min. This film of Athol Fugard’s short play (done in collaboration with John Kani and Winston Ntshona). This is a live performance of the play, originally staged in 1974 at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

South Africa

Drama – Blacks – Race relations – Apartheid

Sizwe Bansi Workshop. 1983, 43 min. South African actor-writers Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona discuss and re-write the play “Sizwe Bansi is Dead.”

South Africa

Apartheid – Blacks – Race relations – Drama – Fugard, Athol

Baptism on a Durban beach

Skin deep. A co-production of WGBH Boston and BBC. 1999, 60 min. Examines the fight against legal, institutionalized racism in the United States and South Africa.

South America - United States

Apartheid - Civil rights - Anti-apartheid movements - Civil rights movements - Race relations - History

Skin deep, 1960

Solel Boneh overseas. Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, Hebrew University - WZO, 1999. Produced by Ben Oyserman.

Israel - Africa - Turkey

Construction industry - Relations

Somalia: the neglected civil war. Director, Seijun Hata. 2002, 49 min. Independent since 1960, Somalia has seen virtually constant political upheaval. Some eighty percent of the nation is under the power of guerillas and local warlords.

Somalia

Social conflict - History - 21st century - Insurgency - Social aspects - Politics and government - Social conditions - Documentary films

English narration; some interviews with English subtitles

Africa in the 21st century; 1

A son of Africa. Writer, Danny Padmore; producer, Hugh Williams; director, Alrick Riley. 1996, 28 min. A docudrama based on the book, The interesting narrative of the life of Oloudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vaasa the African, which was the first influential slave autobiography.
See also: Black people in Britain, 1555-1833 ; Black Atlantic writers of the eighteenth century

Africa - Great Britain - United States

Slave trade - History - 18th century - Equiano, Olaudah, b. 1745 - Slaves - Biography Africans - Race relations - Documentary films

Equiano, Olaudah b. 1745 - Interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano

Song of Africa. Produced by the South African company, African Films. Directed by Emil Nofal. 1951, 58 min. Musical Director: Charles Berman, with Joseph ‘Muso, Albertina Temba, Daniel Moshesh, Beryl Shabalala, The African Inkspots, Black Broadway Boys.

South Africa

Zulu (African people) – Drama – Music – Blacks – Apartheid Jazz – African Americans – Influence – Blacks in motion pictures

SongoLoLo: Voices of Change. 1993, 54 min. Presents a cross-section of Black South African anti-apartheid culture.

South Africa

Anti-apartheid movements – Blacks – Music Intellectual life – Social conditions – Politics and government, 1978-1989

Dialogue in English and local languages with English subtitles

Voices of change

Songs of the Adventurers. David Coplan, narrator; Welcome Msomi, recitations in English; with Molefi Motsoahae and other reciters. Constant Springs Productions. 1987, 47 min. Depicts the poetic songs, known as difela, of Sotho migrant workers, who must go from their homes in Lesotho to work in the mines in the Republic of South Africa.

South Africa – Lesotho

Sotho (African people) – Folk poetry – Folk music – Music – Social conditions

Songs of the Badius. Produced, directed, and narrated by Gei Zantzinger. Constant Springs Productions. 1986. 35 min. Depicts the dance music of the Kriolu people of Santiago Island in the Cape Verde Islands.
See also: Performing Africa ; Music in West Africa ; Les musiques du Cap-Vert ; Songs of the Badius ; African dance: sand, drum and Shostakovich ; Grenzenlos

Santiago (Cape Verde) – Säo Tiago Island

Kriolu (African people) – Folk songs – Documentary films – Folk dance music – Folk music – Portuguese music

English and Portuguese with English subtitles and voiceovers

The soul eaters. A Witness production; writen and produced by Stephanie Lucas.  2001, 7 min. Examines the challenges facing women in Western Africa, who are held responsible for unexplained deaths in their communities, and are accused of engaging in witchcraft and sorcery.

Burkina Faso

Women - Social life and customs

The Sorious Samura collection: Cry Freetown, Exodus, Return to Freetown. Written and presented by Sorious Samura. London: Insight News Television. 2005, 134 min. Sorious Samura documents the civil war in Freetown during which thousands of children were abducted by a ruthless rebel leader and forced to become soldiers.

Freetown (Sierra Leone)

Immigrants - Europe - Economic conditions - Boy soldiers - Child abuse - Children and war - History, 1961- Emigration and immigration - Civil War, 1991-

South Africa 1990: The Year of Change. 1991, 37 min. A Broadcast International Production.

South Africa

Documentary films – Race relations – Politics and government, 1978-1989

South Africa Belongs to Us. Chris Austin. 1980, 35 min. This intimate portrait of five typical black South African women reveals the dehumanizing reality of life under apartheid.

South Africa

Black women – Social conditions – Apartheid – Race relations – Apartheid

South Africa, The Nuclear File. Produced by Peter Davis of Villon Films, 55 min. How South Africa acquired nuclear capability with help from Western friends.

South Africa

Nuclear weapons – Testing

South Africa: The Apartheid Years. 1998, 196 min. Four documentaries by Peter Davis about the Apartheid era in South Africa.

South Africa

Documentary films – Apartheid – History – Race relations – Nationalism – Afrikaners – Mandela, Nelson – Mandela, Winnie

White laager – Generations of resistance – Winnie Mandela under Apartheid – Remember Mandela!

South Africa: The Wasted Land. 1990, 52 min. Documentary portrait of South Africa presents the waste of a land and people struggling against toxic wastes, asbestos poisoning, and air pollution.

South Africa

Economic conditions – Race relations – Apartheid

A South African farm. Written, directed and edited by Paul Laufer. Documentary Educational Resources. 1983, 56 min. After a five-year absence from South Africa, filmmaker Paul Laufer returned to his country to film a microcosm of a society in turmoil.

South Africa

Documentary Films - Agriculture - Apartheid

South African propaganda films of the Apartheid era. Selection II. Distributed by Villon Films. 2004, 61 min. The African National Congress as Communist-inspired corrupters of black youth in South Africa.
See also: Selection III ; Selection V ; Selection VI ; Selection VII ; Selection VIII ; Selection IX

South African

African National Congress - Propaganda - Motion pictures in propaganda - Toleration - Civilization - 20th century- Race relations

Sowing seeds of hunger. Produced & directed by James Heer. 2002, 27 min. Part of a series examining the issue of globalization and its effect on ordinary people around the world. This segment looks at the AIDS epidemic in Zambia and other sub-Saharan African nations which has crippled the agricultural community, forcing children to undertake the responsibilities of farming.
Series: Life. Series 3; program 11

Africa, Sub-Saharan - Zambia

Children of AIDS patients - Orphans, Services for - Agriculture - Economic aspects - Social aspects - Family farms - Globalization

English and African languages with English voiceovers

Life. Series 3

Speaking of Nairobi: forum '85: a world meeting for women. Director and commentator, Tina Horne; producers, Signe Johansson and Barbara Janes. 1986, 56 min. 17,000 women gathered in Nairobi in July 1985 for the official conference concluding the United Nation’s Decade for Women and the unofficial conference, "Forum ’85".

Kenya

World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women (1985: Nairobi, Kenya) - International Women’s Decade, 1976-1985 - Economic conditions - Congresses - Social conditions - Women’s rights - Feminism - Developing countries

Speaking out: women, AIDS, and hope. Produced and directed by Joanne Burke. 2002, 56 min. Profiles an HIV and AIDS support project in Bamako.
Series: New directions

Bamako (Mali)

AIDS (Disease) in women - Health and hygiene - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - HIV Infections - Social Work - Documentary films

Dialogue in French with English subtitles.

Women, AIDS, and hope in Mali

Speaking with God: a Mossi baga diviner in Burkina Faso. Produced, edited and narrated by Christopher D. Roy. 2006, 25 min. This spectacular video, filmed in Burkina Faso in 2005 and 2006, shows an elderly diviner called a baga, who wears a complex costume as he speaks with God.

Burkina Faso

Divination - Dablo - Mossi (African people) - Religion - Religious life and customs - Documentary

Narration in English; dialogue and ceremonies in Mooré with some English subtitles

The spectre of hope. A Minerva Pictures production in association with Amazonas Images. 2001, 52 min. Noted Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and art critic John Berger pore over Salgado’s photographic collection "Migrations," six years and 43 countries in the making.

Africa - Asia - Eastern Europe - Latin America

Salgado, Sebastião, 1944- Migrations - Refugees - Pictorial works - Documentary photography - Social aspects - Globalization - Developing countries

The speeches of Nelson Mandela. 1995, 70 min. A demonstration of Mandela's oratory prowess in the course of his long political career.

South Africa

Mandela, Nelson, 1918 - Politics and government - 20th century - Race relations

Sphere project: an introduction to humanitarian challenges. Produced by Nan Buzard, Daniel Farhi; directed and edited by Daniel Farhi. 2003, 42 min. This film outlines some of the key issues of humanitarianism that confront and challenge those who are committed to alleviating the suffering of populations affected by disaster.

Sierra Leone - Guinea

Humanitarian assistance - Emergency management - Disaster relief - Documentary films

English, French, and Spanish versions

A spirit here today: a scrapbook of Chopi village music. Producer/director, Gei Zantzinger; writers, Michael Bailey, Gei Zantzinger, Andrew Tracey. 1998, 44 min. Presents parts from the 1973 film documenting a performance of music and dance in a Chopi village in Mozambique with a 1992 update on the Chopis.

Mozambique

Chopi (African people) - Music - Dance

English and Chopi, with English subtitles

Scrapbook of Chopi village music

Spirits of defiance: the Mangbetu people of Zaire. Producer/director, Jeremy Marre. 1989, 59 min. Depicts the life of the Mangbetu people in areas such as hunting, smelting, growing crops, and making tools.

Zaire - Congo (Democratic Republic)

Mangbetu (African people) - Music - Songs, Mangbetu - Documentary films

Mangbetu people of Zaire - Under the sun (Television program)

Stage-shakers!: Ghana's concert party theatre. Presented by Kwame Braun and Indiana University Press; written, videotaped, and edited by Kwame Braun. 2001, 104 min. Documents Ghana’s concert party theatre.

Ghana

Performing arts - History - 20th century - Traveling theater - Documentary films

English, Twi, and other African languages, with English subtitles.

State of denial. Directed & produced by Elaine Epstein. 2003, 83 min. Illustrates how South Africans must fight not only the disease but the drug cartels and the inactivity of their own government to get treatment for HIV/AIDS infection.

South Africa

AIDS (Disease) - Treatment - Costs - Patients - HIV-positive persons - Medical care

English, Sotho and Zulu with English subtitles; closed captioned in English.

The state visit to Africa of His Excellency the President of Israel and Mrs. Ben-Zvi: July 29th - August 7th 1962. Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archives. 1992, 14 min. See: Land of Legends

Israel - Liberia - Congo (Brazzaville) - Africa,Central

Ben-Zvi, Itzhak, 1884-1963 - Ben-Zvi, Rael Yanait, 1886-1979 - Foreign relations

Steps for the Future. Produced by Don Edkins. 2002. 25 videocassettes. This unique collaboration between filmmakers from Southern Africa and broadcasters from the Northern countries looks at how individuals are coping and societies changing under the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Angola – Lesotho – Mozambique – Namibia – South Africa – Zambia – Zimbabwe – South Africa

HIV infections – Short films AIDS (Disease) – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

English and multiple African languages with English subtitles

Strange Beliefs. Written and produced by Bruce Dakowski. 1990, 52 min. Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard was the first trained anthropologist to do work in Africa, where he lived among the Azande and studied their belief in witchcraft.

Sudan – Congo (Democratic Republic) – Central African Republic

Zande (African people) – Azande (African people) – Religion –Anthropology – History – Evans-Pritchard, E.E. – Documentary films

English; some dialogue in Zande with English subtitles

Story of a beautiful country. Written and directed by Khalo Matabane; produced by Don Edkins. B 2004, 73 min. The passengers of filmmaker Khalo Matabane talk about their feelings and impressions of South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 while traveling through the nine provinces of South Africa in a minibus taxi.
See also: How beautiful this place can be ; End of part one ; Desire lines ; Belonging ; Notes from a fractured country ; "Not the democracy we struggled for" ; Umgidi ; Domestic differences

South Africa

Documentary - Social conditions, 1994-

Sudan: the harsher face of Islam. Produced by Journeyman Pictures. 2000, 44 min. Describes the suffering and cruelty of the civil war in Sudan, focusing on how Dinka woman and children are being abducted by militiamen in the south and sold as slaves to their Arabic enemies in northern Sudan.

Sudan

Dinka (African people) - Slavery - Slave trade - Documentary films - Social conditions, 1973-

Sudan: slipping back in time - Harsher face of Islam