B. FILM AND VIDEO GUIDE
Please Note: All price and
distributor information is subject to change.
Please contact distributors for most up-to-date prices.
-All prices are for purchase of video
cassettes unless otherwise noted.
AFRICA: A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY (with Basil Davidson), 1984
Duration: 57 minutes in
English
Director: John Percival, Christopher Ralling, Andrew Harries and
Mick Csaky
Distributor: Library Video Company
Price: $79.00(purchase 8-part series)
Discussion guide: none
Synopsis: Africa: A Voyage of Discovery with Basil Davidson, an
eight‑part series, hosted by Basil Davidson, is about the people and
events that shaped African history and which continue to influence it
today. The programs visit Africa to
show life there today and show archival footage and dramatizations of the
history of Africa.
This series can also be found under
the name, Africa: The Story of a Continent Series.
Individual titles include:
Different But Equal (Program 1, Vol.
1)
Mastering a Continent (Program 2,
Vol. 1)
Caravans of Gold (Program 3, Vol. 2)
Kings and Cities (Program 4, Vol. 2)
The Bible and the Gun (Program 5,
Vol. 3)
This Magnificent African Cake
(Program 6, Vol. 3)
The Rise of Nationalism (Program 7,
Vol. 4)
The Legacy (Program 8, Vol. 4)
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Political Science, Sociology
AFRICA: TUNISIA, LIBYA, EGYPT (Our Developing Worlds series), 1994
Duration: 31 minutes,
English voice over
Producer: Gilles Seveni
Distributor: Films
for the Humanities and Sciences
Price: $89.00
Synopsis: Women issues, health, and population growth are featured in this
program. Tunisia, a diverse nation of open‑minded people, is also
predominantly Muslim. Women, however, share equal rights with men and hold jobs
from police officers to airline pilots. In Libya, the UN is attempting to stamp
out the killer screwworm fly before it spreads throughout Africa, southern
Europe, and Asia. A third segment documents Egypt’s ongoing struggle to balance
its growing population with limited resources and land mass.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
THE AFRICANS: A TRIPLE HERITAGE (10- part series), 1986
Duration: 60 minutes
Distributor: Annenberg/CPB Project
Price: $169.00 (purchase
for the 10 part series)
Synopsis: Ali Mazrui's broad look at the peoples of Africa, their history,
and culture, from an African perspective.
Individual titles include:
The Nature of a Continent
A Legacy of Lifestyles
New Gods
Tools of Exploitation
New Conflicts
In Search of Stability
A Garden of Eden in Decay?
A Clash of Cultures
Global Africa
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audiences: Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology
AFRIQUE JE TE PLUMERAI, 1992 Cameroon
Duration: 88 minutes in French with English subtitles
Director: Jean-Marie Teno
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $99.00
Synopsis: Afrique, Je Te Plumerai is documentary film that describes
the historical and cultural roots of the problems faced by Cameroon.
Critique: In many ways, ‘Afrique' may
be considered a voyage of discovery; Teno is himself progressing through stages
of understanding. Once he is convinced
that open political dissent is futile, he turns his attention to Cameroonian
history and culture, hoping therein to find the spark that will unite the
underclass. Again he is rebuffed. Colonialism is deeply entrenched in the
cultural institutions of Cameroon. The
French language is omnipresent. We are
introduced to several bookstore owners, who uneasily explain or evade questions
about the heavy predominance of French novels of every description. In shop after shop, the section for African
literature is literally crammed into a corner to make space for glitzy, thoroughly
Eurocentric, bestsellers (their status as such determinate to an extent on
overseas sales). The owners of the
bookstores emphasize that the French dominate the market, that due to economies
of scale and a generalized contempt among the book-buying populace for
indigenous works they have no choice but to favor the West in their
selections. They appear prosperous
enough. At the same time, and
regardless of censorship, newspapers are snatched up in ever-increasing numbers
by the poor, belying their indifference.
What is starkly portrayed, then, is a
strata of African elite who control the government, the economy, and the
industries of culture. Teno tells the
story of the hunters and the Lark, a parable that depicts the transformation of
certain of the `hunters' into a strange new breed without ties to land or
brotherhood. To the `new' hunter, his
brethren are the Larks. He sings the
same song the children sing in Paris, Lark, I'm going to fleece you. He is the Westernized petty bourgeoisie,
acting as mediator between the world and the populace. He cannot be accepted into the First World,
and he has no longer any kinship. He is
perched upon a colonial structure, afraid to move in any direction because of
the inevitability of his fall from grace.
The piecemeal character of the city of Yaounde reflects the dualism of
his nature, a steady and debilitating vacillation between France and
Cameroon. Ousmane Sembene once stated,
"For the struggle against neo-colonialism it is possible to reactualize all
these scattered and little-known battles" in the history of African
resistance" (Goldfarb 1996:77).
Teno finds his goal in this statement, to make available to the public a
history of Cameroon, written by a Cameroonian rather than a colonial. An elite armed with this knowledge can bring
change. Ultimately, as Marie wistfully
explains, writing is a symbol of hope for change. Afrique, Je Te Plumerai is the first step in such a
history.
(Written by Micheal Dye, MSU, 1998
References:
Goldfarb, B. "A Pedagogical
Cinema: Development Theory, Colonialism,
and Post-Liberation Film", IRIS, 7-24.
Ukadike, F. "The Other Voices of
the Documentary: Allah Tantau and Afrique, je te plumerai, IRIS, 18, 81-94.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
ALGERIA: WOMEN AT WAR, 1992, Algeria
Duration: 52 minutes in
Arabic with English subtitles
Producer: Parminder Vir
Distributor: Women
Make Movies
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rent)
Synopsis: Algeria: Women at War
explores the impact of revolution, nationalism, democratization and the rise of
Islamic “fundamentalism” on women’s lives in late colonial and post-colonial
Algeria. The documentary tells this
story through narration, archival footage, and interviews with Algerian women
who have lived through this era.
Critique: Algeria: Women at War is
a powerful film, particularly because it gives voice to a variety of Algerian
women providing them with the opportunity to celebrate their strengths and
central contributions to the Algerian revolution. These women also express their frustrations, concerns and fears,
relative to the failures of nationalism, democratization and the threats of
“fundamentalism.”
Though a variety of women are
interviewed there appears to be a class and religious bias. Only two practicing Moslem women are interviewed
and most of the women are highly educated, conducting their interviews in
French as opposed to Arabic.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
ALLAH TANTOU, 1991, Guinea
Duration: 62 minutes in
French with English subtitles
Director: David Achkar
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (purchase)
$95.00
(rental)
Synopsis: Allah Tantou is a
film about the cost of human rights in post‑independent Africa. The film focuses on the filmmaker David
Achkar's father, Marof Achkar. In
1968, Marof, a Guinean diplomat, became a political prisoner under Sekou Toure in
Guinea was executed in 1971.
(Critique quoted from California
Newsreel_s Library of African Cinema, 1995-96 catalog)
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
ARISTOTLE_S PLOT, 1996, South Africa
Duration: 71 minutes in French with English subtitles
Director: Jean-Pierre
Bekolo
Distributor: JPB
Productions
Price: $295.00
Synopsis: This feature film examines
the trials of African movie-making in a humorous, and critical, manner by
following a group of wanna-be gangsters who consume all of the latest action
films at the Cinema Africa. They are
encountered by an earnest film lover who is attempting to replace the
irrelevant Hollywood films with meaningful films by African filmmakers.
Critique: Filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekelo spells out his intentions in an
early line in Aristotle’s Plot:
“If African films are shit then Africa is shit.” By highlighting the connection between a
culture and its medium, Bekolo is pointing out the need for films that are both
socially responsible and in touch with their audience. This film positions itself somewhere between
the viewer and the screen. The
spectator observes not just the people in the film and not just the medium but
the actual experience of the actors in the film interacting with and being
affected by the medium. This film is
an excellent catalyst for looking at how the West is influencing culture and
identity in Africa.
Recommended Audiences: Sociology
BATTLE OF ALGIERS, 1966, Algeria
Duration: 125 minutes in Arabic and French with English subtitles
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
Distributor: Facets Multimedia
Price: $59.95
Note: This film can be rented from some commercial video
stores.
Synopsis: A dramatic reconstruction in documentary style of the Algerian
resistance to the French between 1954 and 1957.
Critique: The documentary-style of Battle of Algiers makes it an
extremely powerful film. Italian
filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo successfully creates the mood and urgency of the
Algerian rebellion against the French between 1954 and 1957. Through the flashbacks of a young man who
risks all and becomes a part of the resistance movement, the film effectively
documents the FLN (National Liberation Front) guerrilla underground and
French government’s tactics to annihilate the FLN.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
Duration: 27 minutes in Ijo with English voice-over
Producers: Judith Gleason & Elisa Mereghetti
Distributors: Filmmakers Library
Price: $295.00 (purchase)
$55.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film documents the
Irio ceremony of the Ijo in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Five adolescent girls go through this rites
of passage ceremony which prepares them for womanhood and marriage. The film questions the value and
continuation of the Irio ceremony in modern society.
Critique: Becoming a Woman in Okrika offers a visually aesthetic
presentation of the Iria rite of passage.
It presents an intriguing introduction to a particular practice in the
Rivers State. The film lacks, however,
a full description/ interpretation of the significance of the event
depicted. By neglecting to interview
any of the girls participating in the ritual, the film leaves viewers questioning
the girls' feelings about the rite. The
emphasis on aesthetics leaves too many questions unanswered and exoticizes the
event.
Recommended audience: Anthropology,
Gender Studies
BEYOND THE PLAINS, 1982, Tanzania
Duration: 53 minutes
Director: Michael Raeburn
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $59.00
Synopsis: This film documents the life of a man who left his rural life in
Tanzanian Maasailand at age 8 to be formally educated. He returns many years later as a teacher determined
to integrate the knowledge he has learned with the nomadic life of his
people.
Critique: This is a unique film in
providing a vignette in the person of one Tanzanian of the changes encountered
by the individual and the society in one generation. Beginning in rural Maasailand,
proceeding through the mission school, then the government secondary boarding
school, the University of Dar es Salaam, and finally to work in the government
dispensary in veterinary medicine, Sayallel gives the viewer some picture of
the perceptions of change and the experience of change. The periods of his life
are important major types of experience in Africa for many professionals.
The weaknesses of the film are
implicit in being shown in the West. First, the rural origins in Maasailand of
Sayallel are unusual in that it is a herding society, which is the most
resistant to cultural incorporation by Tanzanians and Westerners. Indeed, in
utilizing the Maasai, there is danger that viewers become entranced with these
'tribal warriors' who are so famous in the Western television and movies for
their 'primitive ways,' their drinking the blood of cattle, their 'strange'
jumping dancing, and their alienness. Second the family's resistance to
education in this case confirms another Western stereotype of Africa-resisting
modernization, 'modem' education and health care. In fact, most of the Africa
demands access to the new school rather than resisting it. Third, there is an
implicit 'tribalism' in the presentation when it is emphasized that Sayallel on
completing his education and serving at the university 'returns to his own
people,' which is what so many allege should occur. But 'his own people' are
the pastoral Maasai, which unquestionably justifies the return to use his
veterinary skills, but the return to the area of 'one's tribe' is not the most
common mode of placement of African professionals.
Nevertheless, the film's strength is
in introducing us to the real person, his thoughts and struggles, the
ambiguities of the decisions he makes, and his strength of character. As in
other films, we evaluate it so highly because it provides a channel for
Africans to speak for themselves.
Recommended Audience: Sociology
BLOOD AND SAND, 1982, Western Sahara
Duration: 57 minutes
Distributor: DSR, Inc
Price: $69.00
Synopsis: A documentary concerning
the Western Sahara and the involvement there of Morocco, Algeria, and the
United States. Journalist Sharon Sopher
report on this liberation war led to the United States’ public questioning of
their government’s involvement in the conflict.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
CHRONICLE OF A SAVANNA MARRIAGE, 1998, Kenya
Duration: 56 minutes with English voice-over
Director: Stig Holmqvist
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $350.00 (purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This documentary follows the changes in a Masai family over a 10
year span, beginning with the marriage of Nayiani and Lekumok. Lekumok marries a second wife six years
later and a third wife a few years later.
The film also looks at the impact of the encroachment of Nairobi on the
life of this pastoral community.
Critique: The strength of the film Chronicle
Of A Savanna Marriage is that it follows one woman_s life experiences across a ten year span. Holmqvist captures pivotal events in the
life of Nayiani: her circumcision, her marriage to Lekumok and subsequent
departure from her home and entrance into her husband_s family, and the introduction of two other wives into
her household. The film describes
Nayiani_s life in the context of Masai
culture, a culture, according to the logic of the film, threatened by urban
encroachment. A poignant scene in the
film features an elder from the settlement, Sharrar, standing next to the
fences erected by government officials who mark the land in order to sell
it. His despair is evident as he
explains that what is happening to the Masai is heartfelt.
At points in the film, the
interviewers questions are leading, reductive, and betray a Western
perspective. For example, the
interviewer asks Nayiana, upon the arrival of her co-wife, if she feels
jealous. This question is asked even
though Nayiana has explained that she welcomes the companionship and assistance
her co-wife will provide. The filmmaker
seems to be in search of an appropriate response instead of allowing Nayiana to
speak for herself.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Gender Studies
DAKAN, 1987, Guinea
Duration: 87 minutes in French with English subtitles
Director: Mohamed Camara
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)/$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This narrative feature is a tale of gay life in Guinea: the love
affair between two African men and the efforts of the people around them to
split them up and give them women to marry.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Sociology
DELUGE, 1995, Ethiopia
Duration: 60 minutes in English and Amharic with English subtitles
Director: Salem Mekuria
Distributor: Third World Newsreel
Price: $295.00 (purchase)
$85.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Filmmaker Salem Mekuria documents the Ethiopian revolution of
1974 through the story of her brother, Solomon Mekuria, and others close to
her. Letters, photographs, archival
footage, paintings and Ethiopian music help to create this personal and
national history.
Critique: This film shows the failure of Ethiopian revolutionary groups to
settle their differences in a peaceful and democratic fashion. It also shows how a revolution which began
on a high note of optimism catapulted Ethiopia out of its supposed backwardness
through a bloodless coup but came to be enmeshed in a fratricidal civil war.
The weakness of Deluge is that
it condemns Lt. Col. Megistu Hayle Mariam as a principal culprit whereas it
should have shown he represents a variant of a militant revolutionary political
philosophy of the left that brooked of no opposition.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
THE DESIRED NUMBER, 1994, Nigeria
Duration: 28 minutes
Director: Ngozi Onwurah
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $295.00
Synopsis: The Desired Number addresses the issue of family planning
and the role of children in Ibo society in Nigeria by focusing on the lives of
a polygamous family (husband, two wives, an
16 children) at the time of an Eze ceremony which celebrates a mother
who has given birth to nine children.
Critique: This film is successful in addressing some important issues
related to gender relations, family planning, and the role of “tradition” and
religion (particularly the Roman Catholic Church) in the context of Igbo
society. The variety of people and perspectives presented help to give voice
to this community. One major drawback
of the film is its poor production value.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Gender Studies, Sociology
FINZAN, 1989, Mali
Duration: 107 minutes in Bambara and French with English subtitles
Director: Cheik Oumar Sissoko
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $295.00 (purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Finzan dramatizes the stories of two women who rebel
against the traditions of Bambara culture.
Nanyuma is a young widow who refuses to be "inherited" by her
brother-in-law as tradition dictates, while Fili is a young urban woman who
refuses to be circumcised as tradition dictates.
Critique: 'In Bambara, Finzan means
'rebellion', a most fitting title for this story of two women steadfastly
resisting tradition.
After the death of her husband,
Nanyuma refuses to bow to ancestral protocol by marrying her
brother-in-law. The younger Fili tries
to escape the ritual of female circumcision.
Sissoko deftly balances widely divergent points of view: the determined
struggle of some women, the obedient tolerance of others, and the bewilderment
of men lost in these times of transition.
The film subtly illustrates relations and conflicts between men and
women, women amongst themselves, and finally the small community and the
powerful state.
As in Sissoko's earlier work, Garbage
Boys, children are omnipresent and represent the hope of changes to come. Tempering a serious subject with compassion
and human, 'Finzan is dedicated to the African women.'
(from California Newsreel's
distributor information)
Recommended Audience: Family Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology
FIRE EYES, 1994, Somalia
Duration: 60 minutes
Director: Soraya Mire
Distributor: Filmmakers Library
Price: 445.00 (purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Fire Eyes looks at
the African practice of female genital mutilation. The film looks at the
socio-economic, psychological, and medical consequences of this custom.
Testimonies from doctors on both sides are shown.
Critique: Fire Eyes is a documentary that discusses
the practice of female circumcision from the perspectives of Somali women who
have experienced and participated in the practice, of Somali men, and doctors.
Soraya Mire, an Ethiopian living in
the United States who herself was circumcised, tells her story in the film's
opening sequences, and her severely critical opinion of the practice informs
the remainder of the film.
Consequently, the film presents a fairly one-sided discussion of female
genital mutilation (FGM). For example, the film includes a graphic
scene of a young woman being circumcised, and although the camera does not film
the mid-wife performing the procedure on the young woman, the audience hears
the screams of the young woman and sees her fingers curling in pain during the
circumcision.
The film, perhaps, attempts to cover
too much ground, both geographically and intellectually. It compares female circumcision in Somalia
with similar practices in Japan and genital surgery in the United States. In order to address these issues, an instructor
should preface viewing with information about both sides of the debate about
female genital mutilation. A detailed
discussion of the cultural specifics of the practice would enhance student's
understanding of the complexities involved in attempts to end this practice.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Gender Studies
FLAME, 1996, Zimbabwe
Duration: 90 minutes
Director: Ingrid Sinclair
Distributor: DSR, Inc
Price: $70.00
Synopsis: This feature film tells the
stories of Florence (Flame) and Nyasha (Liberty), two young women who join
there Zimbabwean liberation struggle.
The film describes their lives as soldiers and the challenges each confronts
in the decade after the war.
Critique: 'Flame' opens with a brief
historical overview that spans Zimbabwe's colonization until the country
achieved independence in 1980. In this way, the film suggests that the story it
sets out to tell is based in reality, and for the most part, the film does
accurately represent the harsh realities women soldiers confronted in the
military camps in Mozambique and the lives of women ex-combatants in
post-colonial Zimbabwe.
Although presented in the realist
mode, the film departs from the linear chronology usually associated with
realism and tells the story of Flame and Liberty through flashback and in the
voice of Liberty. The film opens in
post-independence Zimbabwe in Flame's village as she sets out toward the city
to solicit help form her old friend Liberty, who did not return to the village
after the war. A picture of Flame and
Liberty in combat fatigues, which Flame attaches to the door of Liberty's
apartment after Liberty fails to show up there, serves as a window into the
past. The photograph transports
Liberty, and the film audience, back to the time of the Second Chimarenga when
the young women leave their homes and become freedom fighters. In this way,
‘Flame' limits its scope and effectively captures the experiences of Flame and
Liberty, describing their changing friendship and their changing perspectives
on life, love and their independence as Zimbabweans and women.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
FOUR WOMEN OF EGYPT, 1997, Egypt
Duration: 90 minutes in Arabic and French with English subtitles
Director: Tahani Rached
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $295.00 (purchase)
$90.00 (rental)
Synopsis: The life histories and friendships of activist and revolutionaries Amina Rachid, Shahenda Maklad, ,
Wedad Mitry, and Safynaz Kazem, are documented in this film Through extensive interviews and
conversations their views on religion, society and politics are brought to
life.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science, Gender Studies
THE GAZE OF THE STARS, Mozambique
Duration: 26 minutes in Portuguese with English subtitles
Director: Joao Ribeiro
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (purchase
of Africa Dreaming video of four short films)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: A young war orphan,
Betinho, lives with his sour Uncle Salomao who owns a bar in Maputo. Curious about his uncle’s former love,
Julia, who he lost to his neighbor, Saide. Betinho sets off a chain of events
that lead to a startling discovery about Saide and Julia_s relationship and a community’s silent endorsement of
domestic abuse.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
GUELWAAR, 1993, Senegal
Duration: 115 minutes in Wolof and French with English subtitles
Director: Ousmane Sembene
Distributor: New
Yorker Films
Price: $295.00
Synopsis: Guelwaar is a
trenchant comic portrait of contemporary Africa. The story revolves around the mysterious death and disappearance
after death of Pierre Henri Thioune-Guelwaar, a political activist,
philandering patriarch, and pillar of the local Christian community.
Critique: To the horror of his fellow
Christians, it is discovered that the body of Pierre Henri Thioune, called
Guelwaar, the Noble One, was misidentified and mistakenly buried in a Muslim
cemetery. This sets off a tempest of
bureaucratic red tape, family conflicts, and religious factionalism,
culminating in a tense standoff at the disputed gravesite. Sembene is a master storyteller. This film demonstrates his mastery of free-flowing,
digressive, richly variegated structures.
It is many films in one: comedy, political allegory, social satire,
family drama, and, at the end, thunderous indictment of the twin evils of
homegrown African corruption and neocolonial Western aid.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies, Gender Studies, Political
Science, Sociology
GUIMBA, THE TYRANT, 1995, Mali, Burkina Faso
Duration: 93 minutes in Bambara, Peul, and French with English subtitles
Director: Cheik Oumar Sissoko
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: The allegorical tale Guimba: The Tyrant comments on the
political situation of present-day Africa.
In the epic drama based in 19th century pre-colonial Mali, corrupt ruler
of the town of Sitakili, Guimba Dunbuya, abuses his powers and eventually leads
his subjects to revolt against him.
Critique: The story, Guimba, has obvious parallels with the 1991
overthrow of Malian dictator Moussa Traore in which Sissoko was active. Guimba tells the timeless tale of a
tyrant's hubris and his downfall at the hands of his people, reminiscent of
Macbeth or Richard III. The film's narrative embodies the process of revealing
the truth from behind the facade of despotic power. For Guimba, the prince of a
once prosperous trading city, the key to power is spectacle: humiliating court
rituals, arbitrary displays of wrath, occult powers, even the terrifying mask
which always covers his face.
_Guimba is thus a story of the restoration
of truth and legitimate authority to Djenné, the legendary city where the film
was shot, and, allegorically, of democratic, _transparent_ government to
present‑day Africa. In its
opulence and epic scale, Guimba recalls and calls for the return of the
continent's own former greatness and prosperity. Even, the film's striking
costumes (themselves simultaneously veilings and statements) occasioned the
revival of several traditional Malian textile crafts. _Sissoko notes that in Guimba
he adapted to film two traditional Malian types of discourse used to _speak truth to power’, kotéba, a popular form of satiric
street theater, and baro, a virtuoso kind of public oratory. Thus Sissoko creates through his film not
just an allegory of present‑day African politics but a community of
viewers prepared to mock illicit power whatever its trappings. _
(Critique adapted from California
Newsreel_s On-line Catalogue)
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science, Sociology
THE HAMAR TRILOGY: TWO GIRLS GO
HUNTING,
Ethiopia
Duration: 52 minutes with English subtitles and voice-over
Prod. Co.: BBC Television with Anthropologist Jean Lydall
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $445.00 (purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film is part two of a 3-part series documenting the life of
Duka, a Hamar woman, from a young girl to a married woman with children. This film follows Duka and her young friend
Gardi as they prepare for marriage. The
young women, their parents and their prospective spouses are interviewed about
their feelings on marriage.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Family Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology
THE HAMAR TRILOGY: THE WOMEN WHO
SMILE,
Ethiopia
Duration: 52 minutes with English subtitles
Prod. Co.: BBC Television with Anthropologist Jean Lydall
Distributors: Filmakers Library
Price: $445.00 (purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film is part one of a 3-part series documenting the life of
Duka, a Hamar woman, from a young girl to a married woman with children. This film provides an introduction of the
issues facing Hamar women at various stages of life as adolescents, married
women, and seniors.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Family Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology
THE HAMAR TRILOGY: OUR WAY OF LOVING, Ethiopia
Prod. Co.: BBC Television with Anthropologist Jean Lydall
Duration: 52 minutes, Ethiopia
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $445.00 (purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film is part 3 of a 3-part series documenting the
life of Duka, a Hamar woman, from a young girl to a married woman with
children. In this film, Duka is a mother
of two children, a two-year old girl and an infant boy. She discusses her adjustment to her new home
and married life. She and Sago, her
husband, are interviewed about wife beating and the institution of marriage.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Family Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology
HARVEST: 3000 YEARS, 1975, Ethiopia
Duration: 150 minutes
Director: Haile Gerima
Distributor: Mypheduh Films
Price: $300.00 (purchase,
institutional use)/$34.99 (purchase, individual use)
$150.00 (rental for 16mm film,
classroom use)
Synopsis: Harvest: 3000 Years is a dramatization of
a peasant family's struggle for survival on the farm of a wealthy landowner in
Ethiopia.
Critique: In its depiction of
Ethiopian peasant life and the struggle to survive, Harvest: 3000 Years
is unique and quite excellent. The use of a fictionalized, ethnographic style
allows the audience to become involved with the family portrayed and to
understand their needs and aspirations. Though the filmmaker espouses a
specific political view- point, this viewpoint does not affect the accuracy of
the lifestyle presented. The photography combines with a slowly paced editing
style to reflect the centuries of long struggle expressed by the title. As
mentioned above, some background information may be necessary for certain audiences,
but viewed strictly as cinema, the film is complete and powerful.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Political Science, Sociology,
HOME AWAY FROM HOME, 1994
Duration: 11 minutes
Director: Maureen Blackwood
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $175.00 (purchase)
$65.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Inspired by a true story, Home
Away From Home depicts the attempt of an African woman to establish a sense
of home in urban Britain. The main
character builds a mud hut in her backyard that is eventually destroyed by
unwelcoming strangers.
Critique: Despite the short length of
Home Away From Home, director Maureen Blackwood beautifully expresses
the tensions and difficulties faced by immigrant families. With no dialogue, Blackwood’s characters
communicate themes such as intergenerational conflict, missing home, cultural
dissonance with neighbors, racial tension, and the struggles of a woman trying
to preserve her culture and identity in a new context. As the mother begins building a mud hut in
her yard, she begins to heal her sense of longing, repair her strained
relationship with her teenaged daughter, and teach/ remind her children about
their homeland. Her actions do not,
however, aid in her relations with her white neighbors and ultimately her hut
is destroyed.
The film would be an excellent choice
for instructors dealing with issues such as immigration, cultural preservation,
cultural plurality, identity, ‘otherness’ and alienation.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Gender Studies, Sociology
IMPERFECT JOURNEY, 1994, Ethiopia
Duration: 88 minutes in English and Amharic with English subtitles
Director: Haile Gerima
Distributor: First Run/Icarus Films
Price: $490.00 (purchase)
$100.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Imperfect Journey
shares stories of oppression as told by the mothers of political victims and
individuals afraid to reveal their identities.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
IN DANKU THE SOUP IS SWEETER, Ghana
Duration: 30 minutes
Director: Gary Beitel
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $295.00
$55.00
Synopsis: In Danku the Soup is
Sweeter chronicles the impact of a project of the Canadian International
Development Agency on the lives of two women in Danku in northern Ghana. The project gave the women access to credit
that enabled them to open small businesses of their own.
Critique: In Danku the Soup is
Sweeter, unlike many of the films on women in Africa, offers a positive
look at how Ghanaian women are working successfully to improve their own lives.
The film beautifully captures the daily activities of the women
"entrepreneurs" as they pound vegetables, mix shea butter, and
cultivate the land. It also demonstrates
that African women, who, according to the film, are responsible for 60-80% of
subsistence work responsibilities, can organize into labor groups to qualify
for low interest loans and to provide financial and psychological support for
each other.
One problem with the film is that it
eclipses the voices and therefore the perspectives of the women themselves. The
film fails to include a significant amount of dialogue with the women of
Danku. Instead, a narrative voice over
tells the audience what the women are doing and why they are doing it. In addition, the film clearly sets out to
promote the low interest loan program developed by the Canadian International
Development Agency and does not describe any of the problems or limitation of
the program.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
IN THE NAME OF GOD: HELPING
CIRCUMCISED WOMEN,
1997, Ethiopia
Duration: 29 minutes
Prod. Co.: Cadmos Film for SVT
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $295.00
$55.00
Synopsis: In the Name of God describes
the pain and mutilation suffered by circumcised women in Ethiopia. The film takes the viewer inside the Fistula
Hospital in Addis Ababa, where recovered patients are trained to assist doctors
in repairing the damages to other women.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
KEITA: THE HERITAGE OF THE GRIOT, 1995
Duration: 94 minutes in Jula
and French with English subtitles
Director: Dani Kouyati
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Keita creates a
unique world where the West Africa of the 13th Century Sundjata Epic and the
West Africa of today co-exist and interpenetrate.
Critique: _Director Dani Kouyati frames his dramatization of the
epic within a contemporary boy from Burkina Faso, learning the history of his
family. During the film, Mabo and his distant ancestor, Sundjata, engage in
parallel quests to understand their destinies, to ‘know the meaning of their
names’. In so doing, Keota makes the
case for an "Afrocentric" education, where African tradition, not an
imported Western curricula is the necessary starting point for African
development.
(Critique quoted
from California Newsreel’s Online Catalogue.)
Recommended Audience: Political Science, Sociology
LAGOS: RICH MAN, POOR MAN
Duration: 20 minutes
Director: Don Rook
Distributor: Films
for the Humanities and Sciences
Price: $149.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This program shows the
enormous contrast between the lives of two children in Nigeria_s bustling metropolis, thereby illustrating how the city
works and its people survive.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies, Sociology
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SARA BAARTMAN, 1998, South Africa
Duration: 52 minutes in
English
Director: Zola Maseko
Distributor: First Run-Icarus Films
Price: $390.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: A new documentary film
about the fascinating story of this Khoi Khoi woman who was taken from South
Africa to France , in 1814. She became
the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of
European ideas about black female sexuality She was then exhibited as a freak
across Britain. The image and idea of "The Hottentot Venus" swept
through British popular culture. A court battle waged by abolitionists to free
her from her exhibitors failed. The Life and Times of Sara Bartman ‑
"The Hottentot Venus" deconstructs the social, political, scientific
and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a
representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.
Critique: No critique available
Recommended Audience: Anthropology, Gender Studies, Sociology
LUMUMBA: LA MORT DU PROPHETE
(Lumumba: Death of a Prophet ), 1992, DRC
Duration: 69 minutes in
French with English subtitles
Director: Raoul Peck
Distributor: California
Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film reviews the life
of Patrice Lumumba, first president of
the Democratic Republic of The Congo.
Recommended Audience: Political Science
MAIDS AND MADAMS, 1985, South Africa
Duration: 52 minutes in
English
Director: Mira Hamermesh
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film is an expose of
relationships between black maids and their white employers in South Africa.
Critique: Maids and Madams,
apparently based on Jackie Cock's book of the same name, explores the
relationship between white employers and black domestic servants in South
Africa. The film and the book, however,
fundamentally differ in terms of methodology, sample and explanation. Cock conducted her research in the Eastern
Cape, the most economically depressed area in South Africa. Hamermesh's film is located in the very
wealthy northern suburbs of Johannesburg.
Unlike the book, the film makes no mention of the historical dimensions
of domestic work, nor does it situate domestic work into the wider matrix of
apartheid social relations.
The film treats domestic work as an
act of oppression in itself. On one
level, this is true. However, it
obscures the fact that domestic work is both a symptom and example of the
larger oppression of apartheid. It is
easy to see how this confusion can arise ‑‑ domestic work accounts
for the second largest category of employed black women after agriculture. The
film sees this exploitation as a moral one, manifested in poor conditions of
service, and not as an inevitable by‑product of black life under
apartheid. To understand the oppression
of black women in domestic service, it is necessary first to understand the
position of black women under apartheid generally.
The director's
assumptions are never explicitly articulated.
Viewers are unaware of how certain incidents were filmed (reconstructed,
observational, etc.) or informed how the crew persuaded the white 'madams' to
expose their vulnerabilities to the camera.
When ordinary people perform for cameras, they often tend to overplay
their quirks and foibles, being on their 'best' behavior. It is doubtful that
any of the madams portrayed would have agreed to participating if they thought
their behavior would be portrayed as hypocritical or that the very intimate
relationships that develop between maids and madams would be portrayed as
morally wrong. The way the camera and
crew distort everyday relationships and behavior has always been an epistemological
problem for ethnographic filmmakers.
But more than this, ethical questions are of concern, too.
(Adapted from critique by Keyan
Tomaselli, Professor and Director, Centre for Cultural and Media Studies,
University of Natal, Durban)
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
MAMA BENZ, 1992, Togo
Duration: 48 minutes in
French with English subtitles
Prod. Co.: SFINX FILM/TV
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $350.00
(purchase)
$65.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film is about
successful market women in Togo who have gained the name Mama Benz because of
their Mercedes Benz automobiles. There
is particular focus on one woman who oversees the textile trade in Lome.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
MAPANTSULA, 1988, South Africa
Duration: 104 minutes in
English, Sesotho, IsisZulu and Afrikaans
Director: Oliver Schmitz
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: The film depicts life in
Soweto, South Africa’s largest township during the mid-‘80’s. The central character in the movie is Panic,
a township “clever” who turns into a political activist while in jail.
Critique: The word ‘mapantsula’, from
which the title of this film, ‘Mapantsula,' is taken, has been translated by
American reviewers as `thief,' `hoodlum,' a street-wise, small-time crook. In South Africa it refers to an exaggerated
way of talking and dressing originally derived from American gangster movies of
the 1940s. The mapantsula or tsotsi
subculture was a way disempowered, alienated young ghetto men could maintain a
facade of pride and possibility in their lives during a period of limited
political options.
Not just the mapantsula, Panic, but most
of the characters are caught between strategies of survival and strategies of
resistance between working within an oppressive social system. The story is told through a series of
flashbacks the central character, Panic, has while in prison. Through these, Panic, comes to understand
how he and each of the other characters come to abandon their individual
compromises in favor of collective struggle. Panic, whose given name is
Themba, has adopted a variety of identities
for survival. As a police informer, he is known by his Afrikaner name,
Johannes. He is comfortable in none of
these identities; now he must adopt a new one.
(Written by Keyan Tomaselli, 1990)
Further Reading:
Tomaselli, K.G. (1993).
"'Colouring it In': Films in
`Black' or `White' - Reassessing Authorship", Critical Arts, 7(½), 61-77.
Schmitz, O. and Mogatlane, T. (1991).
Mapantsula: Screenplay and
Interview. COSAW, Johannesburg.
Tomaselli, K.G. (1991). "Popular
Communication in South Africa:
Mapantsula and its Context of Struggle", South African Theatre
Journal, 5(1) 46-60.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
MONDAY’S GIRLS, 1993, Nigeria
Duration: 50 minutes in
Waikiriki and English with English subtitles
Director: Ngozi Onworah
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film explores the
changing attitudes toward a female rite of passage custom in the Niger delta
region. Two young women, one a willing
participant from the rural area and the other a reluctant participant from the
city, are contrasted as they undergo the iria ceremony.
Critique: Monday's Girls explores the
conflict between modern individualism and traditional communities in today's
Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from the Niger delta.
Although both come from leading families in the same large island town,
Florence looks at the iria women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe,
who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an indignity. Ngozi
Onwurah, director of such feminist classics as Coffee Coloured Children and
Body Beautiful, herself an Anglo-Nigerian, turns a wry but sympathetic eye on
the cross-cultural confusions. Monday's
Girls calls into question the idea of a single, "ethnographically
correct" representation of tradition. Rituals are revealed as fluid,
polysemous texts, social contracts continuously renegotiated between
individuals and communities. For millions of Africans like Azikiwe, tradition
is increasingly seen as a matter of individual choice not social coercion._
(Adapted from California Newsreel_s Online Catalogue.)
Recommended Audience: Anthropology,
Gender Studies, Sociology
MORTU NEGA (Those Whom Death Refused), 1988,
Guinea Bissau
Duration: 93 minutes in Criolo with
English subtitles
Director: Flora Gomes
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
$95.00
Synopsis: Mortu Nega tells the
story of post-revolution Guinea Bissau as the Portuguese are driven out of the
country through the story of Diminga and her husband, Sako. This film highlights the horrific battle
they fought to drive the Portuguese from their country and the struggle that
followed in building their nation.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
MY HEART IS MY WITNESS, 1996, Algeria, Mali, Morocco.
Duration: 56minutes in French
with English subtitles
Director: Louise Carre
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$90.00 (rental)
Synopsis: My Heart Is My Witness
is a beautifully filmed documentary that explores the status of women in the
North African countries of Mali, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Critique: Long shots of the snowy
Canadian landscape and the voice of an Algerian woman who reads from a letter
she has written to a friend in the North frame the film, My Heart Is My
Witness. The letter describes the
violence inflicted on Algerian women juxtaposed with images of Canada (a
country far removed from the violence).
The film’s voice-over recounts a view of North Africa with which many in
the North are familiar. The film,
however, does not allow this presentation of North Africa to remain
unchallenged. Interviews from men and
women from a range of economic backgrounds, professions and locations describe
problems confronting women in Islamic cultures with a great deal of complexity
and insight.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
NAKED SPACES: LIVING IS ROUND, 1985, West Africa
Duration: 135 minutes in
English voice-over
Distributor: Trinh T. Minh-ha
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $495.00
(purchase)
$295.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Using a nonlinear structure, Naked Spaces focuses on
living in six West African countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkino Faso, Togo,
Benin and Senegal). This film
challenges the traditions of ethnographic filmmaking
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Anthropology, Family Studies, Sociology
Director: Godwin Mawuru
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $79.95
Synopsis: 'Neria,' a film based on a
story by Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga, is about a Shona woman named
Neria who challenges the greed of Phineas, her brother-in-law, for her
inheritance rights, after the death of her husband.
Critique: This film focuses on
Neria's struggle to triumph over patriarchy and care for her
children. Neria harbors respect for traditional practices, but she refuses
to allow Phineas to
dominate her. She fights to remain in Harare rather than
return to the village. The film
demonstrates that traditions can
indeed bend to the changing times.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Family Studies
LA NOUBA DES FEMMES DU MONT-CHENOUA, 1977, Algeria
Duration: 115 minutes
Director: Assia Djebar
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$90.00 (rent)
Synopsis: The title and structure of
this film come from 'Nouba', a traditional song of five movements. Set 15 years after the end of the Algerian
war for independence from the French, this film mixes both narrative and documentary
styles of filmmaking to construct the personal and cultural histories of
Algerian women and their involvement in the anti-colonial struggle.
Critique: Finally available in the
United States, this classic film from acclaimed novelist/ filmmaker Assia
Djebar is essential viewing for an understanding of women in Algeria. Taking
its title and structure from the _Nouba_, a traditional song of five movements, this haunting
film mingles narrative and documentary styles to document the creation of
women’s personal and cultural histories.
Returning to her native region 15
years after the end of the Algerian war, Lila is obsessed by memories of the
war for independence that defined her childhood. In dialogue with other
Algerian women, she reflects on the differences between her life and theirs. In
lyrical footage she contemplates the power of grandmothers who pass down
traditions of anti‑colonial resistance to their heirs. Reading the
history of her country as written in the stories of women’s lives, Assia Djebar_s La Nouba des Femmes du Mont‑Chenoua is an
engrossing portrait of speech and silence, memory and creation, and a tradition
where the past and present coexist.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
THE ORPHAN GENERATION, 1992, Uganda
Duration: 50 minutes
Director: Jamie Hartzew
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $79.00
Synopsis: The Orphan Generation
documents the struggle of one Ugandan village trying to to cope grave orphan
crisis as a result of AIDS. The video
includes a 10 minute program called "These Are Our Children", an
appeal to political leaders, planners and aid donors to support local communities
in meeting the basic needs of AIDS orphans.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Sociology
OUR FRIENDS AT THE BANK, 1997, Uganda
Duration: 90 minutes
Director: Peter Chappell
Distributor: First/Run Icarus
Price: $245.00
(purchase)
$100.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Peter Chappell followed the
negotiations between the World Bank and Uganda in
this documentary that looks at
politics of donor – recipient relationships.
Critique: Critique not available.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science
OUT IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1995, South Africa
Duration: 51 minutes
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$90.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Filmmaker Barbara Hammer trained several groups of people how to use
video, and to record each other in
interviews about life as a lesbian or gay man living in the
townships. Out In South Africa
is a portrait of lesbian and gay life in a country juggling its
spirit of optimism with the legacy of
apartheid - both sexual and racial.
Critique: Critique not available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
PAIN, PASSION AND PROFIT, 1992, Kenya, Senegal
Duration: 49 minutes
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $275.00
(purchase)
$75.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Anita Roddick, the founder
of the Body Shop visits female entrepreneurs in
several African countries and looks
at the status and connection of women globally.
Critique: Critique not available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
Duration: 52 minutes with
English subtitles
Producer: Maarten Schmidt,
Thomas Doebele
Distributor: First/Run Icarus
Price: $390.00
$75.00
Synopsis: Politics Do Not a
Banquet Make explores the theme stated by a former soldier,
"You can't eat politics like you
can eat bread." The film uses
interviews with a wide variety
of individuals from Tigray, Ethiopia
to investigate the relationships among war, politics and
hunger.
Critique:
Politics Do Not a Banquet Make provides audiences with a wide array
of perspectives on
issues of politics and survival in
post‑revolutionary Ethiopia, including men and women,
peasant farmers, urban, un‑employed
workers, former soldiers, business elites, government
officials, Meles Zenawi, the current
prime minister, and a leading newspaper editor. The
film accurately portrays rural life
in Tigray and illustrates that rural people are setting their
own priorities. The video celebrates the tremendous strength
of Ethiopians without
romanticizing them.
One small criticism of the film is
that it is too long and might be difficult to use in an
undergraduate classroom. The focus of the film is limited; it is centered on Tigray, the
home of the current Ethiopian leadership,
and although many critiques of the current
government are included, the film
adopts a position supportive of the Zenawi regime. An
instructor might want to supplement
the film with background material on the transition of
power in Ethiopia.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science.
REASSEMBLAGE, 1982, Senegal
Duration: 40 minutes with
English voice-over
Director: Trinh T. Minh-ha
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $395.00
(purchase)
$140.00 (rental, video or 16mm film)
Synopsis: Women are the focus but not
the object of Trinh T. Minh‑ha_s influential first film,
a complex visual study of the women
of rural Senegal. Through a complicity of interaction
between film and spectator, Reassemblage
reflects on documentary filmmaking and the
ethnographic representation of
cultures.
Critique: Reassemblage is a
nicely conceived and well produced film which addresses the important issue of
how African peoples (particularly “traditional” cultures) are represented in
ethnographic discourse. Minh-ha relies
primarily on filmic techniques to express her concern over the representations
of Africans in ethnographic filmmaking.
Shots of people are cropped, images silenced, and voices untranslated in
her tour of Senegal. Minh-Ha focuses on
stereotyped images of Africa - bare-breasted women, children, dancing - to
expose the partiality of our knowledge.
Although at times the film appears to slip into the style of filmmaking
it critiques, overall Reassemblage presents an excellent challenge to
the standard western production of knowledge on the “other.”
Recommended Audience: Anthropology, Gender Studies, Sociology
SABRIYA, Tunisia
Duration: 26 minutes
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (purchase
of Africa Dreaming video of four short films)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: This film explores the
impact of the modern world on the traditional male society
of the Maghreb. Best friends, Said and
Youssef, are content to have fulfilled a life‑time
dream by opening a "chess bar" in the middle of the
desert, but all this changes with the
arrival of Sarah, a free‑spirited
woman.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
SAIKATI, 1991, Kenya
Duration: 90 minutes in
Swahili with English subtitles
Director: Anne Mungai
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $79.00
(purchase, only available in PAL version)
Synopsis: A young Maasai girl is
promised to the chief's son for marriage and forbidden to
continue her education. She escapes to Nairobi to pursue her dreams,
only to find broken
promises and lost innocence in the
big city. She returns home and attempts
to cope with her
family's decisions for her future.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
LES SILENCES DU PALAIS (The Silences of the Palace), 1994,
Tunisia
Duration: 127 minutes in Arabic
with English subtitles
Director: Moufida Tlatli
Distributor: Arab Film Distribution
$79.00
Reel.com
$67.99
Synopsis: This narrative feature
tells the story of a young Tunisian woman, Alia, who grows up in the household
of the royal family, where her mother is a servant. The film explores the issues of class, gender, sexuality,
colonialism and post-colonialism.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Family Studies, Sociology
SOPHIA'S HOMECOMING, 1997, Namibia
Duration: 26 minutes in Nama
with English subtitles
Director: Richard Pakleppa
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase of Africa Dreaming video of four short films)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: On Sophia_s returns home after working as a domestic for a white
family in Windhoek for twelve years, she discovers that her sister has replaced
her as partner to her husband and mother to her children. Through the advice of Ou Sus (Big Sister),
Sophia forgives her sister and leaves for Windhoek with her three children.
Critique: The film depicts the
effects of migrant labor on rural African families. The brief
film also shows the role that
extended families play in minimizing conflict within families.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Gender Studies
TAAFE FANGA, 1997, Mali.
Duration: 95 minutes in
Bambara and French with English subtitles
Director: Amama Drabo
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: A domestic comedy in which
women's and men's roles are reversed.
It is a story
about women's right to resist
patriarchy, 'to fight for the right to be different and equal.'
Critique: No critque available.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Gender Studies
TABLEAU FERRAILLE, 1997, Senegal
Duration: 85 minutes in
Wolof and French with English subtitles
Director: Moussa Sene Absa
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: The story of a young politician Daam and his two wives Gagnesiri,
a woman from
the village, and Kine, a Westernized
urban woman, presents a contrast of two possible
development paths for Africa
Critique: No critique available
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
TWO DOLLARS WITH OR WITHOUT A CONDOM, 1997, Ethiopia
Duration: 40 minutes in
Amharic with English subtitles
Producer: SVT, Cadmos Films
Distributor: Filmakers Library
Price: $295.00
(purchase)
$55.00 (rental)
Synopsis: In this documentary, we
meet the young girls who are compelled to turn to prostitution to survive.
Critique: The film succeeds in
bringing out several levels of prostitution--street kids, brothels, luxury
prostitutes. The connection between
prostitution and AIDS, and particularly the role of poverty, ignorance and
hopelessness in the spread of the latter are well established.
One weakness of the film is that it
does not show the response or lack of it from the government, social and civic
organizations and society at large.
Another is that it does not offer a solution as to how the problem could
be alleviated if not entirely eliminated.
The film contends firstly that AIDS
is spreading at pandemic proportions in Ethiopia. Secondly, it argues that poverty and lack of education contribute
the most to its spread. The material is
up-to-date as the situation has not changed drastically since the film was
made.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
UDJU AZUL DI YONTA (the Blue Eyes of Yonta), 1991,
Guinea Bissau
Duration: 90 minutes in
Criolo with English subtitles
Director: Flora Gomes
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Udju Azul di Yonta
is the story of a love triangle told against the backdrop of the harsh
realities of post-independent Guinea Bissau.
Set the capital city of Bissau, the film features a beautiful young
woman, Yonta, who falls in love with a war hero, Vincente. Vincente, disillusioned by the situation of
his newly independent country, finds Yonta’s fascination with Western fashion
and pop culture frivolous. Ze, a young
man from the village, admires Yonta from afar but Yonta is oblivious to his
passion for her.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Political
Science, Sociology
VUKANI MUKAI AWAKENING, 1989, Zimbabwe
Duration: 27 minutes
Producer: Ranche House College
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $39.95
Synopsis:The short documentary
'Vukani Mukai: Awakening' is aimed at encouraging
Zimbabwean women to organize small‑scale
income generating projects and seek training to
run these cooperative (coop) groups
more effectively. Made in Zimbabwe, this film examines
several self‑help projects such
as vegetable growing, bread baking, sewing and basket
weaving.
Critique: A film made in Zimbabwe for
African women to encourage them to get training to
help organize small‑scale
income generating projects more effectively. Vukani Mukai is
produced by Ranche House College in
Harare, a center that provides the
type of training outlined in this
film. Coop leaders are filmed during
training sessions which
involve teaching, role‑playing
and discussion. Vukani Mukai is an educational and
motivational tool that highlights the
benefits of cooperative organization and practical
training for rural Zimbabwean women.
Interestingly, although this film is
aimed at a Zimbabwean audience, the narration and voice
overs are in English. When speakers
use Shona or Ndebele, they are drowned out by a voice
over in English. Perhaps English was used to reach a wider
audience and act as a bridge
between Shona and Ndebele speakers,
but it seems that similar films in Shona and Ndebele
would certainly appeal to rural
Zimbabwean women. Furthermore, at
times, voice overs are
without dialogue, so viewer wonder
who made the comments.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
WARRIOR MARKS, 1993, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso
Duration: 54 minutes
Director: Pratibha Parmar
Distributor: Women
Make Movies
Price: $295.00
(purchase, video)
$85.00 (rental, video)/$175.00
(rental, 16mm film)
Synopsis: Warrior Marks is
Alice Walker’s look at female genital mutilation. Using
interviews with women from Senegal,
Gambia, Burkino Faso, the United States and England
who are concerned with and affected
by genital mutilation, Walker comments
on the subject
from a very personal
perspective.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audiences: Gender
Studies, Sociology
WITNESS TO APARTHEID, 1987, South Africa
Duration: 58 minutes
Director: Sharon Sopher
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Price: $79.95
Synopsis: Witness to Apartheid bears witness to the youngest victims
of apartheid during the state of emergency in South Africa in the mid‑
1980_s. Focusing on the children who were
tortured and detained during this era, the documentary tells their stories,
fears and hopes for a free democratic South Africa.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Political Science
THE WOMEN WILL: WANAWAKE MATATUNZA, Kenya
Duration: 30 minutes
Producer: Episcopal Church
Center
Distributor: DSR, Inc.
Synopsis: This video documents a
Kenyan women's training program, showing a trainer conducting a workshop and
several grassroots projects that have developed as a result of the
training. The video features interviews
of women who have undergone the
training.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies
WOMEN WITH OPEN EYES (FEMMES AUX YEUX
OUVERTS), 1994
52 minutes French with English
subtitles
Director: Anne-Laure Folly
Distributor: California Newsreel
Price: $195.00 (Purchase)
$95.00 (Rental)
Synopsis: This film profiles
contemporary African women in four West African countries: Burkina Faso, Mali,
Senegal, and Benin. We meet a woman
active in the movement against female genital mutilation, a health care worker
educating women about sexually transmitted diseases, and business women who
describe how they have set up an association to share expertise and provide
mutual assistance.
Critique: Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts is visually quite stunning and makes
economical use of its 52 minutes to cover many aspects of the roles of African
women. Although it begins with a poem
by a Burkinaabe woman and in Burkina Faso, by the end of the film the viewer
has also seen footage from Mali, Senegal, and Benin. It is organized thematically by titles flashed on the
screen. Most of the women speak French,
with English subtitles provided. The
subjects covered include female genital mutilation (Burkina Faso), forced
marriage and lack of property rights (Burkina Faso), AIDS, the struggle against
poverty (Senegal, Mali, Benin), and political participation for women (Benin,
Burkina Faso). The narration is
multi-vocal, often from activists involved in amelioration of various aspects
of women’s situations. Although most of
these activities come from the elite, a non-condescending view of the situation
of poor women is presented in many contexts; men are heard from occasionally;
and the point is made firmly by a market woman that by discriminating against
women ‘man is destroying himself.’ The
tone varies from anger to dispassionate observation, depending on the
speaker. Many of the women are
eminently quotable, and there is significant footage from the 1991 revolution
in Burkina Faso, along with an interview with a participant whose daughter was
killed in the women’s demonstration that was a key event. Also included is an extended interview with
Mali’s first female governor (of Bamako), who does some of the narration. The film therefore has historical
ramifications in several aspects, but it is an unintentional historical
document, not a historical documentary.
(Review by Claire Robertson. American
Historical Review 101.4 (Oct 1996): 1142-1143.)
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Family Studies, Sociology
WOMEN OF NIGER, 1993, Niger
Duration: 26 minutes in
French with English subtitles
Director: Anne Laure Folly
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Price: $250.00
(purchase)
$60.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Niger is a traditionally
Islamic country where authorized polygamy and Muslim fundamentalism clash with
the country_s struggle for democracy. In
elections in 1993, men voted by proxy for their different wives and daughters.
Women who speak out about their rights have been physically attacked and ex‑communicated
by the ayatollahs. Working together, women are the most ardent defenders of
democracy, which offers the best hope of winning the equal rights which are
still denied them. Critical viewing for those interested in women_s human rights and the impact of fundamentalism.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Political Science
WOUBI CHERI, 1998, Ivory Coast
Duration: 62 minutes in
French with English subtitles
Director: Phillip Brooks
& Laurent Bocahut Distributor:
California Newsreel
Price: $195.00
(purchase)
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Woubi Chéri is the
first film to give African homosexuals a chance to describe their world in
their own words. Often funny, sometimes ribald, but always real, this
documentary introduces us to gender pioneers demanding their right to construct
a distinct African homosexuality.
Critique: No critique available.
Recommended Audience: Gender Studies,
Sociology
ZAN BOKO (Homeland), 1988, Mali
Duration: 94 minutes in
More with English subtitles
Director: Gaston Kabore
Distributor: California Newsreel
$95.00 (rental)
Synopsis: Zan Boko explores the conflict between tradition and
modernity. It tells the poignant story of a village family swept up in the
current tide of urbanization.
Critique: Zan Boko expertly
reveals the transformation of an agrarian subsistence society into an
Industrialized commodity economy. Zan
Boko is also one of the first African
films to explore the impact of the mass media in changing an oral
society into one where information is
packaged and sold. The film provides viewers with a unique opportunity
to see our own televised civilization through the eyes of the traditional
societies it is replacing.
Recommended Audience: Family Studies,
Sociology