September 18

Tsotsi
Director: Gavin Hood
(94 minutes, 2005, South Africa, in Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English with English subtitles)
    Set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto - where survival is the primary objective - Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader who ends up caring for a baby accidentally kidnapped during a car-jacking. Tsotsi is a gritty and moving portrait of an angry young man living in a state of extreme urban deprivation. His world pumps with the raw energy of “Kwaito music” - the modern beat of the ghetto that reflects his troubled state of mind. The film is a psychological thriller in which the protagonist is compelled to confront his own brutal nature and face the consequences of his actions. It puts a human face on both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crime and is ultimately a story of hope and a triumph of love over rage. “Tsotsi” literally means “thug” or “gangster” in the street language of South Africa’s townships and ghettos. “Kwaito” is South Africa’s answer to American Hip Hop.

Fang: An Epic Journey
Director: Susan Vogel
(8 minutes, 2001, USA)
    Fang mixes documentary and fiction techniques to recount an African art object’s journey through a century of peril and adventure, and uses the film styles of each historical period to tell its story - a whole century of Western attitudes towards African culture packed into 8 minutes.

Si-Gueriki (The Queen Mother)
Director: Idrissou Mora Kpai
(63 minutes, 2003, Benin, in Bariba and French with English subtitles)
    Si-Gueriki is a documentary first intended as a tribute to the filmmaker’s late father, a wasangeri or member of the royal family of the Borgu people of northern Benin. In the course of his investigations, director Mora Kpai discovers the lives of his mother and sisters which had previously been invisible to him and decides to make a film about them instead. Mora Kpai’s ignorance of women’s lives results from Borgu child-rearing practices. Boys are removed from their mothers at an early age and spend all their time with the men. At the same time (around 5 years old) young girls are given away by their birth-mothers to be brought up by a female relative; this is to train them to be subservient members in their husband’s family. Mora Kpai’s mother is the si-gueriki or “queen mother” of the Borgu people, like European monarchs today, fills largely a ritual function. But modernity is finding its way into the Borgu lands as evident in the changing roles of the younger women in Mora Kpai’s family and in the work world outside traditional villages. With the current emphasis on the key role of women in development and on using traditional structures as the basis for progress, the role of the si-gueriki could become reinvigorated if she uses her authority to struggle for women’s schooling, planned parenthood and AIDS education.

Your Dark Hair Ihsan (Tes Cheveux Noirs Ihsan)
Director: Tala Hadid
(14 minutes, 2005, Morocco, in French and Arabic with English subtitles)
    A young man returns to his hometown in North Africa when he learns of his mother’s death.  Navigating between dreams and memories, the young man is constantly reminded of his mother, as he learns of her amazing efforts to give him a better life.

Enough! (Barakat!)
Director: Djamila Sahraoui
(94 minutes, 2006, Algeria, in French and Arabic with English subtitles)
    Set in war-torn Algeria in the 1990s, Enough! follows two women on the dangerous search for the younger woman’s husband, a journalist whose writings resulted in his disappearance. Both women represent anachronisms in Islamist Algeria: the younger woman is a doctor, the older a nurse with vivid memories of Algeria’s fight for independence. Ignoring curfews and the constant threat of ambush by armed militias, the two women challenge the men they encounter to accept them and help them with their search. Their journey leads them across the picturesque landscapes of Algeria, to a deeper understanding of how their lives were shaped by their country’s history.

Justice at Agadez
Director: Christian Lelong
(78 minutes, 2005, Niger, in English and Tamashek with English subtitles)
    Filmed in the village of Agadez in northern Niger, Justice at Agadez chronicles seven typical cases heard by the local Islamic judge, or Cadi. The film unobtrusively witnesses these seven ‘stories’ - small civil disputes, domestic conflicts, marriage problems, accusations of theft. With the small vestibule of his home serving as a ‘courtroom,’ the Cadi listens to the complaints and often heated arguments of all parties to the dispute - sometimes just a husband and wife but at other times a room full of shouting people - listening patiently, frequently posing questions and  seeking clarification, before rendering his judgment. Justice at Agadez not only demonstrates the power of Islamic religious beliefs in enforcing both moral and civil behavior but also provides viewers a rare opportunity to see how Islamic law, unlike the manner in which it has often been sensationalized in the media, actually functions on an everyday basis.

Thomas Sankara
Director: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda
(26 minutes, 1991, Democratic Republic of Congo, in French with English subtitles)
    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.

Afro@Digital
Director: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda
(52 minutes, 2003, Congo/France, in English, French, Jula and Yoruba with English subtitles)
    Afro@Digital begins with a provocative question: “Why speak of new technologies on a continent which wakes up and goes to sleep to the terrorism of poverty?” In other words, how can Africa escape the logic of poverty and unequal development by making sure that digital technology doesn’t pass it by, become an agent of neo-colonialism or marginalize it still further? Despite the relative scarcity of computers on the continent, the largest source of coltan, a product used in most microprocessors, is the Congo. Afro@Digital then looks at the impact of various digital technologies across a broad swath of present-day African life. The first cell phones were introduced in the Congo in 1986; today they have flooded the continent circumventing the often unreliable and expensive land-based telephone networks. Combining traditional and modern, a marabout in Burkina Faso and a Yoruba babalao say that cell phones allow them to keep in close touch with their devotees around the world. Although the internet and digital television will inevitably open Africa to further globalization, this documentary shows Africans responding positively by developing their own vigorous presence in a new international, digital cultural ecology.

Another Man’s Garden (O Jardim do Outro Homem)
Director: João Luis Sol de Carvalho
(80 minutes, 2006, Mozambique, in Portuguese with English subtitles)
    For a young girl who wants to study medicine in Mozambique, the obstacles extend far beyond the distractions of her boyfriend and her family. A moment of weakness or an error in judgment can cost her a place at the university, an irretrievable loss in a country with so few opportunities for women. Sol de Carvalho dedicates this film to the courage of young women who continue to strive against the odds, proving that educating a girl is not a waste of time in a land where it is perceived that “sending a girl to school is like watering another man’s garden.”

Films screenings are at 7 pm in the Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue.
Admission is free and open to the public.

Fall 2007 Film Series Flyer (1 pg w/o descriptions)
Fall 2007 Film Series Flyer (with descriptions)