GREAT AFRICAN FILMS, VOLUME 2: Tasuma / Sia, the Dream of the Python - The second installment in this series of award-winning films from Africa includes Kollo Sanou's Tasuma, the Fighter (2003, 90 minutes, French and Jula with English subtitles), a look at the impact of French colonialism on Africa; Former Senegalese tirailleurs, Burkinabe soldier Sogo Sanou waits patiently for his pension, which he plans to use to build a grain mill for the women of his village; Inspired by the seventh-century myth of the Wagadu people of Western Africa is Dani Kouyate's Sia, the Dream of the Python (2001, 96 minutes, Bambara with English subtitles): To bring back prosperity to his village, a King decides to make a human sacrifice to the mystical snake god; Sia, the most beautiful woman in the village, is chosen for the ritual, but she runs away in revolt. - 186 minutes.

TASUMA, THE FIGHTER

Sogo Sanou, a.k.a. Tasuma, is a former French soldier, a part of the African troops better known as “tiralleurs senegalais” who fought in the French wars in Europe and its colonial territories. He was a soldier in the wars of Indochina and Algeria. Although an honored veteran, Tasuma spends decades painfully waiting for his small pension, an amount that in his native Burkina Faso represents a fortune, even though it will equal only a small fraction of the amount paid to his French counterparts.

In a scene that takes us back to another African classic, The Money Order by Ousmane Sembene, Tasuma impulsively buys a treadmill for the women in his village with the money represented by his future pension payment, although he doesn’t know exactly when it will come through.

The money does not arrive, and our hero is in trouble and out of patience. With his old rifle he walks into the pension plan administrator’s office and demands his money. He ends up in jail, and it is up to the women from the village to come down to the city to free Tasuma. Tasuma the Fighter, is a portrait of a bureaucratic adventure that, even 60 years after World War II and 44 years after the independence movement in Africa, is not yet resolved.

As Kollo Daniel Sanou, the director of Tasuma, points out: “The story of Tasuma is also the narration of a historic mismatch, that of the particular status of those former combatants of the African troupes in the French Army.”

|Burkina Faso|2003| 90min | comedy in French/Moore with English subtitles | Daniel Kollo Sanou, Dir. |
Winner Bronze Yennenga Stallion, FESPACO 2005

"Tasuma camouflages its razor-sharp indignation with warmth and disarming grace" ~ VILLAGE VOICE

"Director and writer Kollo Daniel Sanou is in a becalmed, idyllic state of mind, as he leans back and lets this mildly satiric parable unfold." ~ THE NEW YORK TIMES

SIA: THE DREAM OF THE PYTHON

Kombi is a poverty-stricken city dominated by a tyrant king. In order to bring back prosperity, the king is advised by his priests to make the traditional human sacrifice of a young virgin to a mystical snake god. Sia, the most beautiful young woman of the village, has been designated. Lieutenant Mamadi, her fiancé, rebels against the decision to perform this ritual, and the village becomes divided. Struggles and revelations follow as the characters confront issues of honor, corruption and power.

| Burkina Faso/France |2001 | 96min |Epic Drama in Bambara with English subtitles |Dani Kouyaté, Dir. |
Winner “Special Prize of the Jury” FESPACO 2001 - Official Selection Cannes 2001.

"Delivers a powerful commentary on how governments lie, no matter who runs them" NEW YORK POST

GREAT AFRICAN FILMS, VOLUME 3: Daratt (Dry Season) & The Desert Ark - The third installment in this series of award-winning films from Africa includes Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Dry Season (2006, 95 minutes, French and Arabic with English subtitles), a subtle and often surprising film from Chad about the relationship between a young man and his father’s killer set at the end of the country’s civil war when the government has granted amnesty to war criminals - and Mohamed Chouikh's The Desert Ark (1997, 90 minutes, Arabic with English subtitles), Two teenagers from opposite sides of the tracks fall in love, their forbidden relationship pitting family against family - 185 minutes.

DARATT (DRY SEASON)

Chad, 2006. The government has granted amnesty to all war criminals. Atim, 16 years old, is given a revolver by his grandfather so that he may kill the man who killed his father. Atim leaves his village for N’djamena, seeking a man he does not know. He quickly locates him: former war criminal Nassara is now married and settled down as the owner of a small bakery. With the firm intention of killing him, Atim gets closer to Nassara under the guise of looking for work, and is hired as an apprentice baker. Intrigued by Atim's attitude toward him, Nassara takes him under his wing and teaches him the secrets of making bread. Over the weeks, a strange relationship evolves between the two. Despite his disgust, Atim seems to recognise in Nassara the father figure he has always needed, while Nassara sees the teenager as a potential son. One day, he suggests adoption.

| Chad | 2006 | 95min | drama in French and Arabic with English subtitles | Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Dir. |
Winner "Special Jury Prize" Venice Film Festival 2006
Winner Bronze Yennenga Stallion, FESPACO 2007

“Haroun is an uncommonly precise filmmaker who guides Daratt to an unusually satisfying ending.” - TIME OUT NEW YORK

THE DESERT ARK

Romeo and Juliet in the Algerian desert. Amin and Myriam are secretly in love. Their families are rivals and when their relationship is discovered, conflict is inevitable. From inside the cave where they have taken refuge, the two young people hear the cries of a senseless murderous raid. A universal metaphor to denounce the horror of all extremist violence, The Desert Ark is a splendid and terrifying visualization of contemporary reality..

| Algeria | 1997 | 90min |Epic Drama in Arabic with English subtitles | Mohamed Chouikh, Dir. |
Winner “Best Cinematography" Special Jury Prize FESPACO 1999.

GREAT AFRICAN FILMS: VOLUME 4 The fourth installment in this series of award-winning films from Africa includes Moussa Toure's impressive "The Pirogue" and Khady Sylla's incisive docs "Colobane Express" and "The Silent Monologue."

Director: Moussa Toure
From: Senegal / France / Germany
Year: 2012
Minutes: 87mins
Language : French and Wolof with English Subtitles
Genre: Drama

In Moussa Toure's powerful epic fiction film, a group of 30 men and a woman sail to Europe in a pirogue, facing the sea - and the possibility of never reaching their destination - in exchange for the myth of a better life in Europe.

"Senegal, a West African nation on the Atlantic Ocean, was home to Africa's greatest movie-maker, Ousmane Sembene. Today, Moussa Toure follows in the master's footsteps with this drama of 30 men (and one woman, a stowaway) who set out on an illegal 7-day voyage to Spain - making the perilous trip in a pirogue - a boat resembling a vastly oversized dinghy. While sharing a common desire to build a better future, these men hail from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. The story grows from a finely delineated mosaic of personalities - reactions to the journey's mounting danger - that span the emotional panoply of human experience. Toure's compelling tale says as much about the universal nature of courage and perfidy as it does about the economic realities faced by so many of the world's people. THE PIROGUE was featured in Cannes 2012, in the Un Certain Regard section." ~ Film Forum.

* Festival international du Film de Cannes, Un Certain Regard, 2012
* Tanit d'or award, Carthage Film Festival, 2012
* Award for best direction, people's choice award, Angouleme, 2012
* Prix Lumieres award for best French-language film, Locarno International Film Festival

WATCH THE PIROGUE ON VOD HERE

Director: Khady Sylla and Charlie Van Damme From: Senegal / Belgium Year: 2008 Minutes:48mins Language : French and Wolof with English subtitles Genre: Docu-drama

In a voice-over, we hear the thoughts of Amy, a girl from a rural area of Senegal who works as a domestic for a well-to-do family in Dakar. She complains about her employer, who continuously criticizes her and gets on her case, and she talks about her dream of one day opening her own eatery. Meanwhile, we see her sweep the pavement, prepare the food and clean the house. The contrast with her vast and barren native region is enormous. In Dakar, some 150,000 young women work as housekeepers for families whose daughters can go to school. "Why does the emancipation of some result in the servitude of others?" Amy wonders. The filmmakers interview other young maids who dream of going to school, and they film a woman who shouts her furious lyrics straight into the camera in rapper-like fashion: "I keep your houses squeaky clean, but you all think I'm dirty!" In a dramatized scene in a slum, the women demonstrate how they'd like to deal with a woman who doesn't pay her housekeeper enough. In response to the situation, the filmmakers make an appeal to change the rules of the world economy.

GREAT AFRICAN FILMS - Vol 5 The fifth installment in this series of award-winning films from Africa includes award winning films A Son (Un Fils) by Mehdi Barsaoui and Wulu by Daouda Coulibaly.

A SON (Un Fils) / Bik Eneich 

An intense family drama starring French-Tunisian actor Sami Bouajila, winner of the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor, Venice Film Festival 2019 and winner of the César Awards, France for Best Actor in 2021.  

11 year old Aziz needs a liver transplant after being seriously injured during a terrorist ambush while on holiday in 2011. At the hospital, a family secret will be revealed.

A drama that expertly captures complex human emotions within their socio-cultural, historical and political context. ~ Hollywood Reporter

Directed By Mehdi Barsaoui / Tunisia/ 2019/ Drama/ Arabic With English Subtitles/ 96 Min

WÙLU

Shot for a good deal of the time using hand-held cameras, WÙLU is an African thriller that has an urgency and a vibrancy most Western made films lack.

Ladji, (a beautifully understated Ibrahim Koma), is the young man who, after losing his job on the cross-border taxis, takes up smuggling cocaine with lucrative if highly dangerous results.

A social commentary about the impact of corruption on intelligent, hard working African youths looking to improve their standard of living at home.

Official Selection TIFF 2016.  Winner Ousmane-Sembene Prize and Best Actor Award for Ibrhim Koma at FESPACO 2017.

Directed by Daouda Coulibaly, 2016, France/Mali, 95min, crime drama, French w/ English subtitles

HARAMUYA

Director: Drissa Toure
From: Burkina Faso and France
Year: 1995  Minutes: 87
Language: French with English subtitles
Genre: comedy

Ouagadougou, its buildings and shantytowns... Wealth in a modern town and poverty in the suburbs. Through Fousseini -- a Muslim firmly attached to his faith and traditions - and his family HARAMUYA draws a picture of Ouagadougou in the traps of modernism and traditionalism. Fousseini tries to take care of his family according to the old precepts and the code of honor inherited from his ancestors. One of his sons is a cinema projectionist and supports all the family against the will of his wife. The other son idles around all day long in Ouagadougou, looking for a girlfriend.

35mm rental: $250
video sale: $90
DVD sale: $295
DVD entitled GREAT AFRICAN FILMS - VOL 1 - also includes feature film Faraw! Mother of the Dunes

HOMECOMING 

KING AMPAW is a Germany trained Ghanaian filmmaker whose work has gained international recognition. Kukurantumi, The Road to Accra, winner Film Critics Award, FESPACO 1985, is one of two feature films - with No Time to Die - in this double set DVD "A KING BEHIND THE CAMERA" that offers a good-humored depiction of life in modern Ghana.

KUKURANTUMI: THE ROAD TO ACCRA 

KINSHASA MAKAMBO

KUKURANTUMI: THE ROAD TO ACCRA 

Minga and The Broken Spoon Trailer - ArtMattan from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

MINGA and the Broken Spoon

A charming animation for the entire family, this African fable tells the story of Minga, an orphaned girl living with her stepmother MamiKaba and her stepsister Abena. One day, when she washes the dishes in the river, she accidentally brakes a spoon. A furious MamiKaba chases her away from the house, asking her to find the only identical spoon hidden by her late mother. An adventurous journey then begins for Minga in the forest.

 Minga and the Broken Spoon is the first feature-length animated film entirely conceived and produced in Cameroon and is loosely based on “The Broken Spoon,” the famous African tale. The film is a vibrant tribute to Cameroon’s rich cultural diversity, while being a source of entertainment for the young and old alike.

By Claye Edou, Cameroon , 2019, 80 mins, animation in English.

MOTO TAXI / BENDSKINS

MOTO TAXI, Narcisse Wandji's first feature film, explores questions and concerns related to the daily life of three Cameroonians, two men and a woman, who manage to make a living working as motorcycle taxis.

Sani, Marie and Franck are three young moto-taxi drivers with unique destinies and stories. Sani has to face Charles, his employer and also father of Samedi, his girlfriend, who is pregnant with his child. Marie, raped five years ago, tries to find Tom, her rapist. And Franck, on his side, must do everything to get rid of the lifeless body of an 8 month old child.

In Moto Taxi, Narcisse Wandji refers both visually and through the dialogues in his film to some important auteurs in African Cinema. Quartier Mozart by Jean-Pierre Bekolo is mentioned casually in a conversation while a Moto Taxi driver explains that the corn on his motorcycle was inspired by Djibril Diop Mambety’s Touki Bouki.

“These references reassure the cinephiles looking for cinematic innovation. The question of cultural identity remains at the heart of the auteur’s work while he/she strives to give a universal feel to his/her creation. “ Pierre Patrick Touko.

Directed by Narcisse Wandji, Cameroon, 2021, 90 mins, drama, French (with English subtitles)

MYOPIA

Fatem, sixth month pregnant, leaves her village perched in the mountains, to fill a frame with empty glasses for the elder of her village, the only person who can decipher the letters sent by members of the villagers’ families who have gone to work in the cities. She moves from station to station to arrive in town in the middle of a protest. This will turn her trip into a peaceful revolution that she is hardly aware of.

Directed by Sanaa Akroud, Morocco 2020, 86min, drama, Arabic w/English subtitles

"A beautifully observed meditation on faith, perseverance and integrity, Moroccan director Sanae Akroud’s sophomore feature is an immersive and heart-breaking unique female saga. " ~ The Brazilian

"This film, which carries beautiful qualities of image and lighting, speaks of poverty, of the feminine condition and of a happiness so simple that one can hardly grasp its meaning nowadays. ~ La Presse

"Fatem is played by Sanaa Akroud, also the film's director. Akroud was in the acclaimed 2011 Egyptian film "Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story". In "Myopia" she is brilliant as our unsettlingly passive villager, whether inquiring about a letter from an absent husband or when wandering innocently through the city in search of an eyeglass shop." ~ Barbara Nimri Aziz

"She will be questioned by the police, defended by an association, interviewed by a journalist… She is accused of having endangered her baby, she is asked some of the most intrusive questions, but each person applies their own way of thinking - myopia of a society incapable of perceiving its difference. Agressive police officers falsely accused, activists urging her to press charges, sensationalist journalist who transforms news, even a listening minister… none understand that she only wants to fix the glasses." ~ Olivier Barlet

"It is in listening to these women that Sanaa Akroud wrote this script which she both interprets and directs. Apart from the interviews, she does it with few words. Wolfango Alfi's sequence shots respond to this desire to account for the time taken by everyday acts. They contribute to the open-mindedness called for by this film without a clear message, if not to invite people to understand that an equivocation is not a limit but a complexity." ~ Olivier Barlet

"This story is sure to resonate with many American viewers learning about the depth of racial disparities and the flaws in U.S. democracy where agents of ‘liberal’ society and opposition parties once again reach out to Black and Brown Americans and immigrants with shallow promises of equality and reform." ~ Barbara Nimri Aziz

THE LAST TREE tells the compelling coming-of-age story of a Black British boy of Nigerian descent in London.  In GLORIOUS EXIT Jarreth Merz, a Swiss-Nigerian actor living in Los Angeles, is summoned to Nigeria to bury his father.

THE LAST TREE

Femi, a British boy of Nigerian descent who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire with his white foster mother, moves to inner London to live with his Nigerian mum.

Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take, and what it means to be a young black man in London.

Going back home to Nigeria with his mum to find his Nigerian roots will help adolescent Femi find grounding and hope for a better future.

Directed by Shola Amoo, 2019, UK, 98 min, drama, English.

Second film in DVD:

GLORIOUS EXIT

NO TIME TO DIE 

Official Selection ACID Cannes Film Festival 2023!

Nome is a historical drama directed by Sana Na N'Hada and written by Virgílio Almeida and Olivier Marboeuf. The story takes place in Guinea-Bissau in 1969, during the war of independence between the Portuguese colonial army and the guerrillas of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea.

The protagonist, Nome, leaves his village and joins the ranks of the guerrillas. After years of struggle, he returns to his village as a hero. However, the initial joy soon gives way to bitterness and cynicism.

By Sana Na N'Hada,  Guinea-Bissau/France/Portugal/Angola, 2023, 117min, Drama, Portuguese w/ English subtitles

"Nome  is a film over 50 years in the making. In the late 60s, revolutionary Bissau-Guinean Marxist leader Amílcar Cabral sent filmmakers Sana na N’Hada, Flora Gomes, Josefina Lopes Crato and José Bolama to Cuba. To help change international public opinion against the Portuguese colonial regime, they returned to the country to document the struggle. This archive footage forms the basis for the fiction Nome, N’hada following its eponymous character as he joins the resistance movement. 

Perhaps Cabral, had he lived to see this movie (assassinated in 1973), would be disappointed, as Na N’hada, returning to one of his first filmmaking projects, complicates a simple resister narrative into a more complex tale of post-colonial legacy and the true cost of war. Things get particularly messy when the occupation is over, colonial occupation giving way to corruption and petty gangsterism on the streets of Bissau, issues that have plagued the country until this day. 

Independence, it seems, is just the start. " ~ ACID Cannes 2023

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH 

ROTATING SQUARE 

Scheherazade, Tell Me A Story Trailer from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

SCHEHERAZADE, TELL ME A STORY

Scheherazade, Tell Me A Story Trailer from ArtMattan Productions on Vimeo.

SCHEHERAZDE, TELL ME A STORY

FALLEN ANGELS PARADISE
(GANNAT AL SHAYATEEN) 

SEASONS OF A LIFE 

SHAIHU UMAR

Didi Cheeka works as a director and film critic and has been working for years to reappraise the Nigerian film heritage. He initiated the archive project “Reclaiming History, Unveiling Memory” with the aim of restoring, digitizing and curating rediscovered Nigerian films.

SHAIHU UMAR is one of the most important works in Nigerian film history, but was long considered lost. Located in northern Nigeria at the end of the 19th century, the film is based on a novel by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who later became Nigeria’s first prime minister. Only the rediscovery of the camera negative in 2016 made the reconstruction of the film possible. The digitally restored version had its premiere at the Berlinale in February 2018.

SHE HAD A DREAM - Young, Tunisian and Black

Ghofrane, 25, is a young Black Tunisian woman. A committed activist who speaks her mind, she embodies Tunisia's current political upheaval. As a victim of racial discrimination, Ghofrane decides to go into politics.

We follow her extraordinary path, ranging from acting on her ambition to be in politics to disillusion. Through her attempts to persuade both close friends and complete strangers to vote for her, her campaign reveals the many faces of a country seeking to forge a new identity.

In its own unique way, this documentary sheds light on the place of women and Black people in Tunisia's changing society.

Directed by Raja Amari, Tunisia, 2020, 90min, documentary, Arabic and French w/English subtitles

* IDFA 2020 - World Premiere

"Binous' determination to be an agent of change lends the film an engaging, upbeat energy that enhances its appeal..." ~ Screen International

"Effortlessly balancing the personal and the political - and the invisible line between them - the filmmaker offers a glimpse into the future of a better Tunisia through Binous's unique odyssey." ~ Film Inquiry

"As a Black woman from a working-class neighborhood in Tunisia, 25-year-old Ghofrane Binous has spent her whole life dealing with class inequality, racism, and sex discrimination. Following an extremely racist incident in 2018 while working as a flight attendant, she posted a cry for help on social media that was widely viewed, then joined a women’s movement and became politically active. The film follows this charismatic figure in the run-up to the 2019 national elections—during the turbulent campaign period, on the way to countless meetings, and in heated conversations with family members, friends, and party members.

The camera stays close to this young woman who is keen to perpetuate the myth of her own invulnerability—and maybe that’s exactly what she needs to do to rise to the top. The backdrop to her political ambition is a divided society where people have little confidence in their own democracy. Connecting it all is the voice-over in which Binous shares her vision of life, and her motivations for becoming politically active in a paternalistic, segregated society where women generally draw the shortest straw." IDFA

SIA, THE DREAM OF THE PYTHON

SINS OF THE FLESH (HARAM EL GASAD)