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 Health Issues collection includes the following titles:

Everyone's Child

A feature film examining the plight of Africa's 10,000,000 children orphaned by AIDS.

California Newsreel | 1996 | 90 minutes

Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts

Women in four African countries are shown organizing around issues of marital rights, reproductive health, female genital mutilation, and entrepreneurship.

California Newsreel | 1994 | 52 minutes

Finzan

Cheick Oumar Sissoko explores the status of African women in two interlocking stories of traditional village society.

California Newsreel | 1990 | 107 minutes

Le Grand Blanc De Lambaréné

A revisionist perspective on Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer rewrites the history of colonialism from the point of view of the colonized.

California Newsreel | 1995 | 93 minutes

State of Denial

South Africa is the country with the highest number of HIV+ people in the world. State of Denial puts a human face on the millions affected by introducing us to six South Africans involved with the AIDS epidemic. It shows how they must fight not only the disease, but also the greed of the drug cartels and the incomprehensible inactivity of their own government in order to get life-saving treatment.

California Newsreel | 2003 | 83 minutes

Visit the title page to preview any of the titles above.