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Director: Jerome Laperrousaz
From: Jamaica/France
Year: 2006 Minutes: 110
Language: English
Genre: Musical Documentary |
MADE IN JAMAICA is a powerful portrait of the leaders of the Jamaican music movement and how Reggae in particular became a worldwide phenomenon. It is the story of how a small island nation in the Caribbean of only three million people took their human experience and turned it into songs full of emotions that resonate around the world.” Reggae is Jamaica’s blues: a music of both desperation and hope.
Never before has a single feature film presented the leaders of the Reggae music movement with the intensity that MADE IN JAMAICA does. The film features Grammy Award Winner Toots, Gregory Isaacs, Bunny Wailer (Bob Marley’s brother), 2006 Grammy Award Nominees Third World, Shia and Cat Core, Beres Hammond, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Alaine Laugthon, Tanya Stephens, Bounty Killer, Blessed, Elephant Man, Lady Saw, Joseph Current, Vybz Kartel, Brick and Lace, Dr. Marshall, Capleton, Koolant, and Left Side & Esco.
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DVD sale: $295
Part of "Jamaican Music & Soul" 2 DVD set with "The Journey of the Lion"
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Director: Sergio Giral
From: Cuba
Year: 1979 Minutes: 95
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Historical Drama
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Maluala takes us into a palenque, a settlement of escaped slaves hidden somewhere in Cuba's eastern mountains, where discord is sown between black "kings" by clever subversives working for the Spanish government.
"Sergio Giral is the best known of the Black Cuban directors and his previous films were historical observations of the period of slavery in Cuba, the gradual rise of rebellion against colonial traditions, and the ultimate freedom that resulted. Maluala is the most striking addition to this genre. The action takes place during the last century in the region of Maluala. Gallo, the black chieftain, together with his cohort, Coba, present a petition for land and liberty to the colonial government. Governor Escudero offers liberty if the rebellious villages will be dismantled and their men offer themselves in surrender. He promises that they will be freed shortly thereafter. Three chieftains agree, but Gallo and Coba refuse…. Giral has mounted Maluala with colorful ritual and acting. Samuel Claxton, as Gallo, is highly stylized in the heroic tradition. It is an absorbing adventure film wrought from historical events which appear violent, but Giral constantly implants into every image the necessity for unity among people in order to combat man's seemingly casual desire to subjugate mankind, in the struggle for power and undefined ambition." ~ San Francisco Film Festival, 1980
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DVD sale: $245
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Director: Georges Gachot
From: Brazil/Switzerland
Year: 2005 Minutes: 82
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles
Genre: Musical Documentary |
In his captivating film, Georges Gachot invites us to enter the universe of Maria Bethania, the famous Brazilian singer. Narrated by Bethania herself, the film not only gives us an insight into the intimate sphere of Maria Bethania's creative process, but focuses on the history of Brazilian music. First a muse of the so-called counter culture, and then the queen of romantic ballads, Maria Bethania chronicles her musical life experience in relation to Brazilian society's development. In addition to this, filmmaker Gachot gathers together a fantastic ensemble of contributors including Gilberto Gil, Nana Caymmi, Miucha, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso, all of them witnesses and participants to some of the greatest music history of our time. |
DVD sale: $245
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Director: Pascal Plisson
From: France/Kenya
Year: 2005 Minutes: 94
Language: Masai with English
subtitles
Genre: Drama
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Faced with a drought that endangers the
continuity of their people, Masai elders are convinced
that they have been cursed by the Red God -- the God
of Vengeance. Following the death of the war chief,
a group of adolescents must now cross over to adulthood,
forced to quickly form a new generation of inexperienced
but brave warriors. The adolescents must bring back
the mane of a legendary lion, which appears at every
critical period of the Masai history to appease the
wrath of the God and bring back the rains. The survival
of their culture depends on this quest.
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35 mm: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Mario Handler
From: Venezuela
Year: 1989 Minutes: 82
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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The action takes place in a village on the Venezuelan coast, a place of fishermen and big haciendas. Jose Ramon, son of a white aristocrat and a humble black fisher-women, is trying to define his own identity while dealing with social and sexual conflicts, power, culture, the law, and the impossible relationship he has with both his parents.
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Dominique Loreau
From: Belgium
Year: 1994 Minutes: 76
Language: French with English subtitles
Genre: docu-drama
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| In this film, whose title is a Senegalese
proverb, a griot (story teller) traveling from Dakar to Brussels
weaves a tale about African expatriates and offers a candid
look at the life of African immigrants in Belgium. With Sotigui
Kouyate - a real life griot - as the story teller. |
16mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Paulo Cezar Saraceni
From: Brazil
Year: 1988 Minutes: 100
Language: Portuguese w/ English Subtitles
Genre: drama
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| The name ‘Natal da Portela’ is
historically attached to the cultural identity of Brazil.
Natal da Portela created the first escola de samba in Rio de Janeiro. The schools of samba are the soul of carnival
in Brazil and major reservoirs of Afro-Brazilian culture.
The film depicts the life of Natal da Portela as a young man
from the favelas--the slums of the northern part of Rio de
Janeiro--up to the creation of “la Portela”, the school of
samba he created. The principal role played by Milton Goncalves,
one of the major Black actors in Brazil, gives the story an
authentic flavor rarely seen in films portraying the contemporary
life of Black people in Brazil. This is a film filled with
joy, music and laughter. “Natal da Portela” is also a film
that narrates the story of contemporary Brazil and the legacy
of African people in that country. Several other major actors
enrich the story, Zeze Mota well known for her role in “Quilombo”
and the dean of Black Brazilian actors, the great Grande Otello
much remembered for his major role in Rio Zona Norte and Macunaima
just to mention a few titles.
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Solveig Nordlund
From: Sweden
Year: 1997 Minutes: 92
Language: Portuguese/Mozambican with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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Shot in Mozambique, but set in an unnamed city, the film depicts the life of an orphan boy, Nelio, whose parents were killed by guerrillas. He escapes to the city and finds magic there and is soon rumoured to possess healing powers, in this violent, yet mythic coming-of-age story. Based on a novel by the popular Swedish writer Henning Mankell.
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Abdelkrim Bahloul
From: France and Algeria
Year: 1997 Minutes: 96
Language: French with English subtitles
Genre: thriller
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Sixty five years old Abdelkader Silimani, an Algerian Muslin living in France, after inadvertently witnessing a murder, closely escapes from the murderers by hiding out into a mosque. The black leather dressed masked murderers, with their firearms in hand, do not hesitate to enter the mosque full of praying men looking for the eyewitness. They leave empty handed but determined not to give up their search.
Detective Leclerc is assigned to the case. As he searches for the eyewitness who stays mute with fear, the detective slowly discovers the Northern Paris Muslim community and its traditions. For the first time, the French detective is exposed to the contradictions and challenges minority communities face as they struggle to live in a new culture with a different set of values and religious beliefs.
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: King Ampaw
From:Ghana/West Germany
Year:2006 Minutes: 95
Language: English
Genre: Drama
Official selection, African Diaspora Film Festival 2007
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Death and funeral traditions play a significant role in African culture. No Time to Die is director King Ampaw’s contribution to passing the tradition onto the next generation.
A hearse driver meets and falls in love with a young, beautiful dancer who is planning an elaborate homegoing celebration for her mother. This love and comedy feature length film follows David as he does everything to win her affection.
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DVD sale: $245
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Director: John Kani
From: South Africa
Year:2008 Minutes: 118
Language: English
Genre: Drama
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Nothing But The Truth is a gripping investigation into the complex dynamic between those blacks who remained in South Africa and risked their lives to lead the struggle against apartheid and those who returned victoriously after living in exile. In New Brighton, South Africa, 63-year-old librarian Sipho Makhaya prepares for the return of the ashes of his brother Themba, recently deceased while in exile in London after gaining a reputation as a hero of the anti-apartheid movement. Internationally recognized, multiple award-winning actor John Kani is the lead actor in this film version of the internationally acclaimed award-winning play Nothing But The Truth which he also authored. |
DVD sale: $245
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Director: John L'Ecuyer
From: Haiti/Quebec-Canada
Year: 2004 Minutes: 88
Language: French with English sub.
Genre: Drama
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Against the backdrop of poverty, fear and the brutal dictatorship of Haiti in 1971, On the Verge of a Fever (Le goût des jeunes filles) is about Fanfan, a 15-year-old boy who just wants to experience life for himself with his streetwise friend Gégé. Having lived a somewhat sheltered life with his protective mother, Fanfan experiences a bizarrely terrifying incident involving a Tonton-Macoute. As a result, he decides to hide out at his beautiful neighbor's house for the weekend. There, he is trapped between his fear of being caught and the fulfilling of his deepest fantasy. Based on the Book Le Gout des Jeunes Filles by famous Haitian novelist Dany Laferriere.
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DVD sale: $245
In 2-disc DVD Dany Laferriere: Films from a Poet's Imagination
with How To Conquer America in One Night.
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Director: Merzak Allouache
From: France/Algeria
Year: 2001 Minutes: 90
Language: Arabic and French with English subtitles
Genre: Romantic Drama
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Yasmine and Rachid, two young Parisians children of Algerian immigrants, are in love and live a quiet life in France. One day, Rachid disappears and Yasmine learns that he is in Algeria. She decides to follow him, in that country that she does not know, that is filled with violence. As she travels looking for Rachid, she falls deeper into the horror of a country where nothing seems normal, another world, where death is ever present. She learns that Rachid was in a military convoy that was attacked by terrorists. Only two soldiers in the convoy survived. She can't believe Rachid is not one of them...
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Frieder Schlaich
From: Germany
Year: 1999 Minutes: 84
Language: German with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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A powerful film portraying institutionalized racism and police brutality, Otomo provides a convincing look at the everyday world of refugees, who are continuously surrounded by tension and insecurity. In the summer of 1989, a Stuttgart newspaper reported the true story of a West African asylum seeker who physically assaulted an intolerant subway ticket-taker; fled, and became the target of a city-wide manhunt. Otomo is a sober, fictionalized reconstruction of a tale that shocked Stuttgart, and a gripping portrait of how institutionalized racism drives a disempowered individual to violence and inhumanity.
West African immigrant Frederic Otomo (Isaach de Bankole) lacks the proper papers to be hired for the most menial of jobs; he has survived for eight years with the help of a Catholic charity. Otomo is the target of verbal abuse, is thrown out of his boarding house, and even scorned by neighborhood dogs. He feels and looks out of place. A stoic bubbling pot of wrath on the run, de Bankole's performance establishes Otomo's essence without words-language cannot express the gravity of his situation. As a ticking soundtrack counts down his fated minutes, Otomo is helped by a kind, aging hippie and her granddaughter, establishing the potential for an inclusive German society….if it is not too late...
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Best Actress, Valenciennes Film Festival 2000
35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $245
DVD also includes Bonus film Waalo Fendo: Where the Earth Freezes
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Director: Sander Francken
From: Netherland/Curacao
Year: 1999 Minutes: 95
Language: Dutch and Papamiento with English subtitles
Genre: romantic thriller
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Papa's song is a drama of domestic tension and cross-cultural misunderstanding. Nico Verema (Rene van Asten), a decorous, somewhat gloomy Dutch magistrate, lives happily with his wife, Shirley (Roman Vrede), who is from Curacao. Shirley's two young nephews, in the Netherlands to escape a bad situation at home, complete the household.
Its atmosphere of calm bourgeois propriety is soon upended by the arrival of the boys' mother, Magda (Lisette Merenciana). Shirley and Magda relationship
is very stormy: they careen from screaming recrimination to tearful tenderness. Nico tries to mediate and soothe, but when Shirley, who cannot bear children, demands that he impregnate her sister, the good judge finds himself entangled in an intergenerational, trans-Atlantic web of family dysfunction.
"Papa's Song" touches on a number of fascinating and difficult themes, including the state of race relations in the contemporary Netherlands. A. O. Scott, NY Times.
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $295
In 2-disc set Colors of Curacao. With Ava & Gabriel
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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 new epic fiction film, a group of 30 men 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.
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DVD sale: $495
Rental/Theatrical Run: Please e-mailt info@africanfilm.com
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Director: Sergio Giral
From: Cuba
Year: 1986 Minutes: 96
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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Placido portraits the dramatic story of Gabriel de la Concepcio Valdes (Placido), a mulatto Cuban poet accused of leading a conspiracy against the Spanish colonial government. Preoccupied by the development of Afro-Hispanic artist and craftsmen of the mid XIX century, Placido was executed after living a short and controversial life as a man between two races and between a cruel reality and a dream of freedom.
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DVD sale: $195
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Director: Moussa Toure
From: Senegal / France / Germany
Year: 2012 Minutes:87mins
Language : French and Wolof with English Subtitles
Genre: Drama
Tomas, an Afro-Colombian teenager who fled the country’s Pacific coast pushed out by the war, faces difficulties of growing up in a city of exclusion and racism. When Jairo, his younger brother and closer friend disappear, Tomas is forced to leave his home to look for him.
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DVD sale: $395
Rental/Theatrical Run: Please e-mailt info@africanfilm.com
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Director: Horace Ove
From: Trinidad-Tobago/UK
Year: 1986 Minutes: 100
Language: English
Genre: comedy
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| To mark the conclusion of their
"Third World Week" celebration, a cricket team in
a small English village invites a West Indian cricket team
from South London to a charity game.
“Not surprisingly, there's wariness on both sides.
But Willie Boy (Norman Beaton), the proud, wryly philosophical
captain of the Conquistadors, is intent on accepting the
invitation. Meanwhile, the captain of the Sneddington Cricket
Club, the innocent but overweeningly self-satisfied Derek
(Nicholas Farell), is confident of a handy Sunday afternoon
victory.
Obviously, the possibilities, both comic and serious, in
this cultural exchange are endless, and the filmmakers seem
not to have missed any of them. But, for all the film's
abundant humor, Ove, said to be Britain's first black film
maker, and the Oxford-educated Phillips, never let us forget
that racial tensions lurk beneath the occasion's sure of
good will. In the end, Playing Away’s pleasures are
subtle and genuine.” - Los Angeles Times
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35mm rental:Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Title: The President Has AIDS?
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Year: 2007
Country: Haiti
Language: Creole/French with English subtitles
Director: Arnold Antonin
Screenplay: Gary Victor
Cinematography: Camilo Widmaier
Editor: Oldy Auguste
Producer: Arnold Antonin
Music: Boulot Valcourt and John Mogène
Sound: Lazaro
Cast:Jimmy Jean-Louis. Dao; Jessica Geneus Nina
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AWARDS
FESPACO 2007 Winner Paul Robeson Award Best Film by a Director from the African Diaspora Arnold Antonin
Special Mention Vues d’Afrique , Montreal, 2007
Special Award of the Burkina Faso’s Comitteee of struggle against AIDS |
Jimmy Jean-Louis -- featured among the cast
of the television phenomenon “Heroes,” -- stars as musician extraordinaire in denial, President, in this Haitian comedy-drama about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Dao is the biggest movie star in Haiti, the self-proclaimed "President of Compas." He has women falling at his feet and men emulating him. He feels invincible-living the life of a rock star--sex, drugs and alcohol--except that he can no longer hide his illness which is threatening to derail his career. Despite pressure from his manager, he refuses to get tested for AIDS, turning instead to rituals, spells, and the church. At one of his concerts, he rescues Nina from the leery advances of Larieux, a wealthy and powerful businessman, who Nina's mother wants her to marry. As romance blossoms between Dao and Nina, who likes Dao despite his fame, not because of it, Larieux plots his revenge. Also starring Riccardo Lefeuvre and Jessica Geneus.
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DVD sale: $195
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RACE AND HISTORY IN BRAZIL
Joel Zito Araujo/Geraldo Santos Pereira---Brazil---2000---192 mins.
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Race and its impact on the art and history of Brazil are highlighted in this two-disc set with Joel Zito Araujo's documentary Denying Brazil (A Negacao do Brasil, 92 mins.) and Geraldo Santos Pereira's Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory and Torment (Aleijadinho: Paixao, Gloria e Suplicio, 100 mins.)
Denying Brazil
A Negacao do Brasil
A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of Black actors in Brazilian television "soaps." Based on his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyzes race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Black people's identity-forming processes.
Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory and Torment
Aleijadinho: Paixao, Gloria e Suplicio
Set in 18th century Brazil - a time when slavery was still the foundation of the Latin American economy - this fascinating historical drama is loosely based on the life of Black sculptor Antonio Francisco Lisboa "Aleijadinho," one of the greatest sculptors of Latin America.
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DVD sale: $295
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Return to Gorée
Director: Pierre-Yves Borgeaud
From: Senegal/Switzerland/ Luxembourg
Year: 2006
Minutes:108
Language:English and French with English subtitles
Genre: Musical Documentary
Format: 35mm
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A musical road movie, Return to Gorée follows Senegalese singer
Youssou N'Dour's historical journey tracing the trail
left by slaves and the jazz music they created. Youssou
N'Dour's challenge is to bring back to Africa a jazz repertoire
of his own songs to perform a concert in Gorée,
the island that today symbolizes the slave trade and stands
to honor its victims.
From Atlanta to New Orleans, from New
York to Bordeaux and Luxembourg, the songs are transformed,
immersed in jazz and gospel. Transcending cultural divisions
and rehearsing with of some of the world's most exceptional
musicians, Youssou N'Dour is preparing to return to Africa
for the final concert...
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35mm rental: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $245
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Director: Ahmed Hassouna
From: Egypt
Year: 2002 Minutes: 14
Language: Arabic with English subtitles
Genre: surrealist comedy
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Sami and his wife Sarah are packing to move to the USA where they intend to
open a restaurant. Rania, Sarah's sister, goes to their house to take them to
the airport, but some unexpected and unforeseeable events take place in the
apartment: games of seduction, murder and dead bodies to be disposed of. A
surrealist comedy by Ahmed Hassouna who belongs to a new group of young
promising Egyptian filmmakers.
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DVD sale: $245 - DVD also includes film 100% Arabica
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Sara Gomez, An Afro-Cuban Filmmaker
Director: Alessandra Muller
From: Cuba/Switzerland
Year: 2005 Minutes: 76
Language: Spanish with English
subtitles
Genre: Documentary
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Donde Esta Sara Gomez ? / Sara Gomez: an Afro-Cuban Filmmaker is a rich, multilayered documentary about Afro-Cuban director
Sarah Gomez. Born in 1943, she studied literature, piano,
and Afro-Cuban ethnography before becoming the first female
Cuban filmmaker. A woman of great intelligence, independence
and generosity, she was a revolutionary filmmaker with intersecting
concerns about the Afro-Cuban community and the value of
its cultural traditions, women's issues, and the treatment
of the marginalized sectors of society. Through archival
footage of her works and interviews with her children and
husband Germinal Hernandez, cast members of her best-know
film De cierta manera,as well as colleagues and friends,
we get closer to a filmmaker who invented new landscapes
and brought together opposite worlds.
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DVD sale: $295 Part of 2-set DVD Afro-Cuba: Yesterday and Today which also includes The last Rumba of Papa Montero.
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Director: Dani Kouyate
From: Burkina Faso/France
Year: 2001 Minutes: 96
Language: Bambara with English subtitles
Genre: Epic Drama
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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 honour, corruption and power.
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35mm rental: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $295
DVD entitled GREAT AFRICAN FILMS - VOL 2- also includes
feature film Tasuma, The Fighter
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Director: C. Shemu Joyah
From: Malawi
Year: 2008 Minutes:102mins
Language : English
Genre: Drama
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A housemaid, who is sexually abused by her boss and made pregnant, is forced to give up her son in order to go on with her education. Six years later she comes back to claim her son. From Malawi comes this moving story about sexual abuse, women rights and the legal justice system in Malawi.
This film tackles universal themes in an African setting giving an understanding of some of the modernization and democratization processes in Africa. |
DVD sale: $245
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Sheherazade, Tell Me a Story
New 2-disc DVD set that helps put Egypt’s revolution in context.
Director: Yousry Nasrallah
From: Egypt
Year: 2009 Minutes:135
Language :Arabic with English subtitles
Genre: fiction
Original title : Ehky Ya Schahrazad
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New 2-disc DVD set that helps put Egypt’s revolution in context features two films by prominent Egyptian filmmakers, Yousry Nasrallah and Oussama Fawzi.
The explosive Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story is a film about the socio-political situation in Egypt where a journalist bravely records the stories of ordinary women who spin tales of their lives.
The provocative Fallen Angels Paradise is a comedy-drama about social class clashes that was a premonition of the events of Tahari Square and the departure of President Mubarak.
Also features the short film Rotating Square about seduction, ambition and deception.
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DVD sale: $395
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The Silent Monologue
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Director: Khady Sylla and Charlie Van Damme
From: Senegal / Belgium
Year: 2008 Minutes: 48mins
Language : French and Wolof with English subtitles
Genre: Docu-drama |
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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. |
DVD sale: $245
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Director: Sons of Benkos
From: Colombia/France
Year: 2003 Minutes: 52
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
Director: Silva Lucas
Official selection, African Diaspora
Film Festival 2006.
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An entertaining documentary that explores the African culture of Colombia through music. The film presents the music of the Sons of Benkos, one of the most important Black leaders in the fight for freedom during the times of slavery in Colombia. The film also shows the evolution of Afro-Colombian music over time through the fusion of Cuban and contemporary African rhythms with traditional Afro-Colombian music.
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DVD sale: $195
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Sotigui Kouyate: A Modern Griot
Director:Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
From:Chad/France
Year:1996 Minutes:58
Language:French with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
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Through testimonies by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carriere, Jean-Pierre Guigane, and Sotigui Kouyate himself, Sotigui Kouyate: a Modern Griot dresses the portrait of one of Africa’s greatest actor now based in Paris. From Africa to Europe, the film unveils the multiple facets of Sotigui Kouyate, actor, musician and modern griot. |
DVD sale: $245
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Director: Zozimo Bulbul
From: Brazil
Year: 1974 Minutes: 8
Language: silent
Genre: drama
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This short film on the legacy of culture and survival bestowed by enslaved Africans brought to the Americas features the music of John Coltrane.
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16mm rental:Please inquire.
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Director: Nawfel Saheb-Ettaba
From: Tunisia
Year: 1999 Minutes: 52
Language: Arabic/French with English subtitles
Genre: documentary
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Stambali is an annual tribute that
the disciples of Sidi Saad pay to their master during an initiatory
journey and rite of purification that lasts three days. This
Tunisian religious ritual, brought into the country by sub-Saharan
Africans, is a healing ceremony led by musicians who are also
healers as they enter into a trance to the mesmerizing rhythm
of the "gombri" and "chkachek," and incarnate
a deity that takes possession of their body. In Stambali,
the camera follows the rhythm of the possessions and dances
of the healing ceremony as it develops into an individual
and collective hypnosis and takes the audience into the trance
of the eroticism that is released by this physical and spiritual
representation.
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DVD sale: $195
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Director: Menelik Shabazz
From: UK
Year: 2011 Minutes:96mins
Language : English
Genre: Musical Documentary
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The STORY OF LOVERS ROCK is a feature length documentary that tells the story of an era and a music that defined a generation in the late 70s and 80s. Lovers Rock is romantic reggae that was uniquely British. It developed from a small UK scene to become a global brand through the likes of UB40 and Maxi Priest. |
DVD sale: $295
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Director: Mark Dixon
From: Peru/Belgium
Year: 2003 Minutes: 54
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Musical documentary
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Susana Baca is not only a champion in the performance and preservation of Afro-Peruvian heritage, but also an elegant singer whose shimmering voice sings of love, loss and life. Susana and her husband Ricardo Pereira have founded the Instituto Negrocontinuo “Black Continuum” in Lima, a spirited facility for the exploration, expression, and creation of Black Peruvian culture. While Baca has dedicated herself to researching and performing virtually all forms of Afro-Peruvian folklore, it is the lando that has become her trademark. This slow to mid-tempo, highly evocative mix of Spanish, Indigenous and African rhythms has become what the son is to Cuba, or the samba to Brazil--the lando is the sound of Black Peru.
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DVD sale: $195
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Director: Daniel Kollo Sanou
From: Burkina Faso
Year: 2003 Minutes: 90
Language: French and Djula with English subtitles
Genre: Comedy
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A comedy set in contemporary Burkina Faso, Tasuma tells the story of a World War II veteran who has been trying for more than 50 years to obtain his well-deserved military pension. Convinced that he will be paid shortly, Sogo buys a mill on credit for the village. But the money does not arrive. When Sogo is put in prison because he cannot reimburse his loan, the women of the village rally to set him free.
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35mm rental: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $295
DVD entitled GREAT AFRICAN FILMS - VOL 2- also includes
feature film Sia, the Dream of the
Python
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Director: Balufu Bakupa Kanyinda
From: Democratic Republic of Congo
Year: 1991 Minutes: 26
Language: French w/ English subtitles
Genre: documentary
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Captain Thomas Sankara was the leader of the Burkinabe Revolution. In the former Upper Volta known today as Burkina Faso, a group of men decided to launch a revolution that would enable the country "to accept the responsibility of its reality and its destiny with human dignity". Thomas Sankara belongs to the group of African leaders who wanted to give the continent in general and their countries in particular a new socio-political dimension.
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DVD sale: $195
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Director: Menelik Shabazz
From: UK
Year: 1988 Minutes: 84
Language: English
Genre: English
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| Time and Judgement is an overview
of the African Liberation Movement that spans a period of
400 hundred years. The film narrates the tribulations and
successes of people of African descent in and out of Africa
with a special focus on the struggles of the last century.
Through extensive footage of the movement in the Caribbean,
Africa, America and Europe, the viewer is exposed to the critical
political analysis of leaders such as: Maurice Bishop of Grenada,
Walter Rodney of Guyana, Jessie Jackson, Kwame Ture (Stokley
Carmichael) and Louis Farrakhan of the USA, Samora Machel
of Mozambique, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia,
Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, and more.
Through the creative use of various art forms including
theater, poetry, songs and art, Time and Judgement establishes
a connection between a biblical prophecy with the times
we are living in, leading toward the final confrontation
between the heart and money - the heart symbolizing love
and life, and money symbolizing greed and lust for power.
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16mm rental: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Rolph de Heer
From: Australia
Year: 2002 Minutes: 98
Language: English
Genre: Epic Drama
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The year is 1922. The Tracker (David Gulpilil, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Rabbit-Proof Fence) has the job of pursuing The Fugitive, an aborigine who is suspected of murdering a white woman, as he leads three mounted policemen: The Fanatic, The Follower and also The Veteran across the outback. The Tracker, a mysterious and enigmatic figure whose true character remains unknown, assists them in their quest. As they move deeper into the bush and further away from civilization, the toxic forces of paranoia and violence begin to escalate, stirring up questions of what is black and what is white and who is leading whom. Their journey becomes an acrimonious and murderous trek that shifts power from one man to another, challenged by the indigenous people they come across as well as each other.
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35mm rental: Please inquire.
DVD sale: $245
DVD also includes Bonus Documentary Gulpilil: One Red Blood
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AN UNCOMMON WOMAN
Une Femme Pas Comme les Autres
Burkina Faso, 2009, 101 minutes, comedy, French with English subtitles, Dao Abdoulaye, dir.
Official selection, African Diaspora International Film Festival 2010
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Mina is tired of her husband's infidelity and decides to take a drastic decision: She takes a second husband. Based on his conversations with women involved in polygamist relationships, he illustrates - to very funny effects - the daily life of two persons - in this case two men - who share a spouse. On a comedic tone, Abdoulaye Dao tells us a story of jealousy, infidelity, romance and revenge. An Uncommon Woman-Une Femme Pas Comme Les Autres- was a success in its native Burkina Faso and is cast with some the best actors of Burkinabe cinema.
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DVD sale: $245
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Director: Mohammed Soudani
From: Senegal / Switzerland
Year: 1998 Minutes: 65
Language: Wolof with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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Milan, like Paris or Stuttgart, and like many other European cities, is the theater of the drama of immigration. Demba reconstructs his story and that of his brother Yaro, both Senegalese immigrants in Italy, in a long and fragmentary flashback that begins with Yaro’s murder and recounts their departure from the village, arrival in Europe, the work they find selling lighters and picking tomatoes in the south of Italy: the stages every “non-EEC citizen” goes through in Italy. It is a story of immigration like so many others but that most people are unaware of. Waalo Fendo illustrates the dehumanization faced by so many immigrants all over the world.
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DVD sale: $245 DVD also includes film Otomo
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Director: Anthony Metchie
From: Canada
Year: 1995 Minutes: 92
Language: English
Genre: drama
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A psychological drama about the outcome of choices we make in life. This film is a positive message to all those who have faced difficulties in life and to the people who are affected by their decisions to cope with it.
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16mm rental: Please inquire.
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White Like the Moon
Director: Marina Gonzalez Palmier
From: USA
Year: 2001 Minutes: 23
Language: English
Genre: Drama
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A Mexican-American girl struggles to keep her identity when her mother forces her to bleach her skin. White Like the Moon is a revealing film about a dilemma not very well known outside Latino communities; that of the myth of the light skin superiority in Indigenous and Indigenous descendant communities.
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DVD sale : $145
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