Francophone African Films
When Newsreel launched this collection, it was the first and largest collection of African cinema in the United States — and it remains an unmatched resource today. African cinema offers what mainstream Western media rarely does: Africa rendered in its own complexity, beauty, and contradiction, by filmmakers who know it from the inside. Spanning documentary and fiction, master filmmakers and emerging voices, from Francophone and Lusophone countries to Nigeria's Nollywood to post-apartheid South Africa, these films explore women's rights and gender, the legacies of colonialism, political corruption and civil war, cultural identity, sexuality, and the tensions between tradition and modernity. Many titles come with discussion guides and articles by African filmmakers and scholars, making this an essential resource for African Studies, Cinema Studies, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the continent and its people.
Articles to help you view and teach African cinema written by African filmmakers and scholars are also available.
The Francophone African Films collection includes the following titles:
Afro@DigitalAfro@Digital looks at the impact of various digital technologies across a broad swath of present-day African life and asks how the technology is affecting African culture and how it can best serve the interests of Africa and the global South.
Ainsi Meurent Les AngesMoussa Sene Absa's work pushes the formal boundaries of African cinema.
Allah TantouOld home movies, newsreels and a prison diary are interwoven to link personal and public history in this assessment of human rights abuses in Guinea-Conakry.
Arlit: Deuxième ParisArlit: Deuxieme Paris is a case study in environmental racism set in a uranium mining town in the Sahara desert of Niger. Here European corporations extract nuclear power and profits leaving behind disease, contamination and unemployment.
Ça twiste à PoponguineA coming of age story set in a Senegalese fishing village about rival teenaged cliques living out their dreams against a backdrop of disillusioned adults.
DakanThe first feature film on homosexuality from sub-Saharan Africa.
Faat KineIn Dakar, Senegal Faat Kine, an independent, single mother and successful business owner looks back over twenty years of triumphs and hardships - including the betrayals by men in her life. A dramatic tribute to the strength and resilience of African women by Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema.
Femmes Aux Yeux OuvertsWomen in four African countries are shown organizing around issues of marital rights, reproductive health, female genital mutilation, and entrepreneurship.
Le Grand Blanc De LambarénéA revisionist perspective on Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer rewrites the history of colonialism from the point of view of the colonized.
Karmen GeiLike every Carmen, Karmen Geï is about the conflict between infinite desire for freedom and the laws, conventions, languages, the human limitations which constrain that desire. Since this is an African Carmen, freedom necessarily has a political dimension.
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