Africa: Sex, Gender, and Generation

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...

In Mauritania, a country seemingly bound by tradition and male dominance, three women speak freely about sex, love and money.

A biracial woman travels from France to Burkina Faso in search of her mother. In France, a white woman seeks to learn an African language for reasons unknown.

An armchair in the home is often the seat of wisdom, responsibility, or power. In The Armchair, once a woman reaches that station, her world begins to fall apart. With the obligations of motherhood and pressure of social prejudice bearing down on her, Mrs. Ouédraogo must find the wisdom to help navigate her life.

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.

A lot can happen on the long way to the market in the Ethiopian countryside. A father and his son follow all the people's good advice... and come back to their senses.

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.

Djanta, a bright young female student, returns to her parent's village at the behest of the pastor who raised her since she was a child. There, she is surprised to find that her family wishes to marry her to a man to whom she was betrothed as a baby. Djanta runs away from the village, returns to university and sets about to free women from traditional constraints. But is this even possible?

Mahfoud is a young professor at a technical school in Algiers. With his technical and computer knowledge, he renovates an old weaving loom which he plans to show at an international inventor's convention in Germany. His travel plans though are frustrated by administrative obstacles. Meanwhile his neighbors have their eye on him - especially old M'nouar who has been scarred by terrible memories from the Algerian War. He views everything and everyone with suspicion. As far as he's concerned, Mahfoud is up to no good, maybe he's even involved in subversive activities! Of course it doesn't help that Mahfoud is having a love affair with Samia, a young psychiatrist who has returned to the country after her studies to Belgium. She fights against conforming to the local norms and breaks taboos which don't please the people. Finally Mahfoud succeeds in obtaining his visa to go to the international Fair. His invention wins an award there and when he returns home there is a very different welcome for him!

Bintou is beaten by her husband Abel, for using housekeeping money to pay for her daughter to go to school. He believes that only his sons should be educated. Bintou is determined to earn the money herself, but the only skill she knows is growing millet sprouts. She has to find the pots, and obtain sacks of millet from the storekeeper, while her husband continually sabotages her efforts.

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.

The story of Zamiatou, a Songhaï woman, in North Eastern Mali. With two young sons, a pretty daughter and a handicapped husband, Zamiatou struggles to survive in a remote and barren area. She doesn't want her daughter to "work" for white people, but her determination will take her far from her family

A group of woman in an African village finds a mystical mask. Using the mask, they reverse gender roles, women act like men, and men act like women.

"Honey and Ashes" tells the stories of three women from contemporary North Africa. Caught between tradition and modernity, they seek success in their lives and in their relationships with men. Although their age and social backgrounds differ, their paths cross, bringing to light the multiple obstacles which society has placed in their way.

In a small village in rural Algeria, the "village idiot" is madly in love with a married woman. His voyeurism and antics bring shame on his father, who guarantees that his son will be married that same day, or his four wives will be repudiated.

Young people call into question their village's customs and create an agricultural co-operative.

Finye tackles the generation gap in post-colonial West Africa. Its heroine is the pot smoking daughter of a provincial military governor who falls in love with a fellow university student, the descendent of one of Mali's chiefs.

Bila, a young peasant, decides to go to Ivory Coast to work and is asked by his parents to accompany Pogbi who is going to meet her fiancé, through an arranged marriage, for the first time. However, Pogbi is in love with Rasmane, a pariah from the smiths' caste, and runs away.

Kramoko Kouyate, son of a griot, cannot marry Fanta who is of noble blood. In flashback, the film explains the origin of the problem and shows their attempts to get around it.

This film illustrate through physical struggle, the clash between generations and civilizations.

Love collides with social class and colonialism when Aba Appiah, born to privilege, falls in love with Joe Quansah, son of a fisherman. Her father, retired civil servant Kofi Appiah, has other plans for her, and seeks to block their marriage. The resulting conflict has complex and unexpected consequences.

Ngando and Ndomé; are in love. Ngando wishes to marry Ndomé; but her family reminds him that the traditional dowry must be settled. Unfortunately, Ngando is poor and unable to fulfill the tradition. Ndomé; is pregnant and bears his child. According to the village tradition, she must take a husband, at least one who can afford to pay the dowry. The villagers decide that Ndomé; should marry Ngando's uncle, who has already three sterile wives. In despair, the young man kidnaps his daughter upon the day of the traditional feast. An African Romeo and Juliet story.

In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato - Uganda's first openly gay man - and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combating vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one, not even the filmmakers, is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes the movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.