Africa: Independence and Disillusionment

The true story of controversial leader of independent Congo Patrice Lumumba.

Thiery Michel takes an in-depth look at the reign of Mobutu Sese Seko. A man of "modest roots" who had a Catholic upbringing, Mobutu was sent to the army by his father for insubordination. Soon he would be Patrice Lumumba's right-hand man...

Documentary about African political leader Patrice Lumumba, who was Prime Minister of Zaire (now Congo) when he was assassinated in 1961.

This film tells the story of the president of a fictitious African nation who spends a sleepless night playing checkers with a pot-smoking vagabond who claims to be the all-round champion. However, the rules of the game entail the opponents howling vulgar and foul obscenities at one another. The champion proceeds to insult, and trounce, the President. His reward, and his fate, will not surprise anyone.

Boxing documentary on the 1974 world heavyweight championship bout between defending champion, George Foreman, and the underdog challenger, Muhammad Ali.

Tells the story of an idealistic young politician's rise and fall. Daam, a well-intentioned but vacillating European-trained politician must choose between two social paradigms exemplified by his two wives. The first, Gagnesiri, is the village beauty, who waits patiently for Daam. Unfortunately, they are unable to conceive a child, so Daam takes European-educated Kiné, who is eager to get ahead by marrying a politician. Daam becomes involved in a shady business deal with Président, a local businessman; when the details are made public, he is forced out in disgrace.

An exiled Ghanaian politician returns to Ghana two decades after the 1966 coup.

From Che Guevara's military campaign to avenge Lumumba in the Congo up to the fall of apartheid in South Africa, 300,000 Cubans fought alongside African revolutionaries. CUBA, AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY is the previously untold story of Cuba's support for African revolutions, one of the Cold War's most vigorous contests over resources and ideology.

A 20-year veteran of the Angolan civil war returns to the capital city of Luanda where he faces the challenges of assimilation and survival.

The Ethiopian intellectual Anberber returns to his native country during the repressive totalitarian regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu and the recognition of his own displacement and powerlessness at the dissolution of his people's humanity and social values. After several years spent studying medicine in Germany, he finds the country of his youth replaced by turmoil. His dream of using his craft to improve the health of Ethiopians is squashed by a military junta that uses scientists for its own political ends. Seeking the comfort of his countryside home, Anberber finds no refuge from violence. The solace that the memories of his youth provide is quickly replaced by the competing forces of military and rebelling factions. Anberber needs to decide whether he wants to bear the strain or piece together a life from the fragments that lie around him.

Chad, 2006. After a forty-year civil war, the radio announces the government has just amnestied the war criminals. Outraged by the news, Gumar Abatcha orders his grandson Atim, a sixteen-year-old youth, to trace the man who killed his father and to execute him. Atim obeys him and, armed with his father's own gun, he goes in search of Nassara, the man who made him an orphan. It does not take long before he finds him. Nassara, who now goes straight, is married, goes to the mosque and owns a small bakery. After some hesitation Atim offers him his services as an apprentice. He is hired then it will be easy for him to gun down the murderer of his father. At least, that is what he thinks...

Six days in the violent life of a young Johannesburg gang leader.

Literary adaptation: Thru the story of a quiet teenage boy introduced to a powerful wrestling champ, we learn about the specific features of a national tradition in Senegal.

Present-day Chad. Adam, fifty-five, a former swimming champion, is pool attendant at a smart N'Djamena hotel. When the hotel gets taken over by new Chinese owners, he is forced to give up his job to his son Abdel. Terribly resentful, he feels socially humiliated. The country is in the throes of a civil war. Rebel forces are attacking the government. The authorities demand that the population contribute to the "war effort", giving money or volunteers old enough to fight off the assailants. The District Chief constantly harasses Adam for his contribution. But Adam is penniless; he only has his son....

After his brothers death a man plans his funeral but things don't go as planned as his relatives have to come to terms with the fact that he wasn't the man everyone thought he was

During the oppressive reign of Moroccan King Hassan II in the 70's and 80's (a.k.a. Years of Lead) many dissidents went missing. After the throning of a new king, a truth commission was formed in the 2000's. Families of the missing speak.

Adama Diop is a successful scientist, living in Paris. After 15 years away, he travels to his hometown in Senegal to visit his aged grandmother and his semi-deaf mute sister Aicha. Aicha is still traumatized about their mother's death, who died as she was giving birth to her. But the true extent of Aicha's mental state only becomes apparent when Adama discovers she is working as a prostitute, amidst a seedy underworld of gangsters, drugs and crime. Adama's discovery leads to a gripping thriller as he struggles to free Aicha from the sinister world into which she has descended.

Set amidst the civil war of Algeria in the 1990s, Enough! is the story of two women. Emel is a Westerner whose husband, a journalist, is missing - perhaps kidnapped or even killed for articles he's written.

Captain Ekumu has a lot on his mind: his son Ika is dying and he does not have the means to find treatment for him, which is driving his wife Ezéni to despair. A mysterious radio broadcast interrupts the speech of President Baby Zame. It talks of a golden mango tree, of a day to come, of the freedom of poets. Liberty holds sway on the airways it pirates for fifteen minute periods from its hiding place in a truck. Colonel Paturau is ordered to announce a bounty prize to anyone able to arrest pirate Liberty. But how can you arrest a voice that has no body? A culprit must be found. For Ekumu, this could be the solution to his family tragedy.

A village elder veteran expecting his pension buys a mill on credit for the community, but the repeated requests ignored by the government bring back his fighting spirit.

A militant tribute to the commitment of South African women, carried by a fierce energy marked with rage and despair.

El- Manara, is a brutally direct depiction of Algerian society during the rise of fundamentalist Islam, which was to give rise to civil war following the annulment of the 1991 elections, in which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won. It follows the life of Asma who now lives with her daughter in France, having, like many Algerians, fled the war.The film flashes back to Algiers where Asma, a university lecturer shares an apartment with her friends Ramadan, a doctor and Fawzi, a newspaper journalist. They attend the Manara festivities, celebrating Prophet Mohamed's anniversary. The event, a peaceful carnival with music and fireworks, is used as a backdrop to subsequent social transformations, and acts to give the viewer an idea of Muslim traditions in Algeria, which are placed in confrontation with the Wahabite ideology of the FIS. The three young people face obstacles to their friendship and carefree life as the traumas of the 1988 Algerian uprising and ensuing repression brings them face-to- face with their values. Beyond Algeria, the film provides keys to understand the fragility of democratic cultures in the region along with the mechanisms of disseminating fundamentalist Islamist ideas.

A group of children living on the street leave their gang, prompting retribution from the gang's leader. After one of the children dies, the rest try to come up with the resources to give their friend a proper burial.

In the last days of 1999, after a few shots of a French supermarket, abundant in food and color, we hear Dramane compose a letter home to his father in Mali whom he then visits in the village of Sokolo. He meets the lovely Nana, and there are possibilities. People place long-distance calls from the post office. "Reaching people," says the postmaster, "is a matter of luck." Contrasts between Paris and Sokolo - between Mali and France and between Africa and Europe - are underscored by voice-over poems and comments by Aimé Césaire. A man dictates a letter to a brother in France: what is the nature of their hardships? People look for their place on this earth.