Portal:African cinema

African Film and Television Portal

6th ed. | Updated biweekly | June 24 — July 7

Featured Biography

Loukman Ali (1 June 1990) is a Ugandan cinematographer, screenwriter, film director, and producer. His directorial debut was Monday (2013), followed by The Bad Mexican (2017), a short comedy. In 2020 he made his feature debut with the mystery thriller The Girl in the Yellow Jumper which he wrote and directed and won Best Movie East Africa at the 2022 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards. In 2022 Ali directed the Netflix Nollywood feature film Brotherhood, winner of the 2023 Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Nigerian Film. Loukman wrote and directed three short films between 2021 and 2023: The Blind Date, Sixteen Rounds, and Ubuntu Uppercut, winner of Best African Short film at the Durban International Film Festival 2022. Most recently he directed the opening episode of Netflix’s African Folktales, Reimagined, Katera of the Punishment Island, based on the past cultural practice in Uganda of abandoning unmarried pregnant girls on The Punishment Island, also known as Akampene Island. Ali is currently in pre-production with his latest film Pakachini. His shorts The Bad Mexican, Sixteen Rounds, and Ubuntu Uppercut can be viewed on his YouTube Channel.

Read more

Featured Industry Article

Cinémathèque de Tanger (CDT) is an art house movie theater in Tangier, Morocco, and the only non-profit movie theater in the country. CDT was founded in 2007 by the Moroccan visual artist Yto Barrada, French producer Cyriac Auriol, and Moroccan director Latif Lahlou and located in the renovated Cinéma Rif building in the Casbah district.

CDT’s mission to promote Moroccan and independent film and is North Africa's first art house cinema and film archive. CDT offers screenings of contemporary and classic films from over 20 countries, as well as workshops, masterclasses, a café, and an archive. The nonprofit institution is also a founding partner of the Beirut-based Network of Arab Arthouse Screens (NAAS), and is an Associate of the International Federation of Film Archives.

Fallen into disrepair, the iconic Cinéma Rif building built in 1937, was purchased by Barrada and Auriol in 2004. The French architect Jean-Marc Lalo was hired to renovate the building, and created two screening rooms, one of 300 seats and another of 50 seats, at a cost of over a million euros financed by the Moroccan government, the Ford Foundation, and the Europa Cinemas network, among others. A cafe and restaurant were added in 2020.

Today, CDT receives about 1000 cinema-goers a month.

Notable This Month

The African Export-Import Bank and the Fund for Export Development in Africa signed a memorandum of understanding on June 12th with American actress Viola Davis and her recently launched publishing entity JVL Media. The collaboration aims to advance Africa's publishing and film industries.

Nominees for 2024 Simon Mabhunu Sabela Film and Television Awards were announced. The awards recognize outstanding achievement and excellence within the South African film and television industry, focusing on the province of KwaZulu-Natal. TV series Shaka iLembe is leading with the most nominations including for Nomzamo Mbatha, Deli Malinga, Hope Mbele, Thembinkosi Mthembu, Wiseman Mncube, and Kwenzo Ngcobo.

Registration is open for the African International Film and Audio-visual Market (MICA), taking place on the sideline of the 29th Edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO). MICA is a networking forum for professionals from various segments of the film, audio-visual and motion picture industry. The 22nd edition of MICA is taking place from 23 to 28 February 2025 in Ouagadougou. Register here.

Sons of Rizk:The Knockout (2024) is the third installment of the 2015 Egyptian crime thriller, Sons of Rizk. Directed by Tarek Alarian and written by Salah El Gehiny, the sequel had its global premiere June 13. In wide release in US, Egyptian and other cinemas around the world, the film stars Ahmed Ezz, Ahmad El-Fishawy, and Karim Kassem.

Banal & Adama (2023), a French-Malian-Senegalese romantic drama directed by Senegalese screenwriter Ramata-Toulaye Sy in her feature directorial debut was released in US theaters in June. It premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in 2023 and chosen as the Senegalese entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Season two of Savage Beauty drops on Netflix June 28. The South African drama series revolves around Bhengu Beauty, the South African global beauty empire and Zinhle Manzini (Rosemary Zimu), the face of the brand, who surreptitiously plots her revenge against the Bhengu family. The series also explores issues class and colorism. Season 1 ranked in the Netflix's top 10 in 13 countries in its first week.

Featured Film

The Wound (Xhosa: Inxeba Xhosa pronunciation: [íŋǁeːɓa]) is a 2017 South African drama film directed by John Trengove. It was screened in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Panorama section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. It was selected as the South African entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. The story tracks a closeted relationship between two men in the context of the Xhosa initiation ritual of Ulwaluko. Inspiration for The Wound came after Trengove read A Man Who is Not a Man, a novel by Thando Mgqolozana on the topic of the Xhosa initiation ceremony. Trengove wished to challenge the notion that homosexuality was a product of western culture that posed a threat to traditional African culture. The Wound received 19 awards at 44 festivals worldwide; eight South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTA) nominations and won five including Best Feature Film, Best Actor in a Feature Film, Best Supporting Actor in a Feature Film, Best Achievement in Directing in a Feature Film, and Best Achievement in Editing in a Feature Film

Did You Know?

Migration, or Japa, the Yoruba term for “flee”, has been a recurring theme in recent mainstream Nigerian films and TV series. These include Postcards (2024), a Netflix Nollywood-Bollywood production, Kunle Afolayan’s Ijogbon also on Netflix, Isioma Osaje’s JAPA! (2024) on Prime Video, Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Eyimofe (2021) and Dika Ofoma’s A Japa Tale (2023), a short film which can be viewed on YouTube.

Samba Schutte, a Dutch-Mauritanian actor, comedian and writer who was born in the Sahara Desert and grew up in Ethiopia, starred as the first Ethiopian character on an American sitcom—Hakim on NBC's Sunnyside.

The short animated education video “How Did South African Apartheid Happen, and How Did It Finally End?” won the Jury Award for a Commissioned Film at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Created by Egyptian illustrator Aya Marzouk for TED, the short animated educational video can be watched on the TED-Ed YouTube channel.

Following last year’s inaugural Africa Cinema Summit in Accra, Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo pledged to approve a film tax incentive for the Ghanaian film industry. The credit was officially passed a few months later as a 20% tax rebate. The second edition of the Summit will run from October 7-10, 2024 with the theme “The Relevance of Cinema in African Communities.”

Binti, (2021) a Tanzanian drama film directed by Seko Shamte and co-produced with Alinda Ruhinda and Angela Ruhinda was the first Tanzanian film acquired by Netflix. The film, which follows the lives of four contemporary Tanzanian women, won Best Feature at the 2021 Zanzibar International Film Festival.

Birthdays

Henri-Joseph Koumba Bididi (b. 15 July 1957), is a Gabonese filmmaker and screenwriter. His filmography includes the critically acclaimed short film Le Singe Fou (2008) and feature film Le Collier du Makoko (2013), then the most expensive film produced in sub-Saharan Africa at a cost of 4 million euros.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (b. 10 July 1977) is a British-Nigerian actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award, with nominations for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. His African filmography includes The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) a drama film that he wrote, directed, and starred in, based on the memoir by William Kamkwamba, and Half of a Yellow Sun, based on the novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Adil El Fadili (b June 26, 1970) is a Moroccan director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is known for his award-winning short film Courte Vie, which traces the journey of a young boy, Zhar, from 1970 to 2010 and simultaneously highlights events that marked not only Morocco of the time but also the world. In 2024, his first feature film Mon père n’est pas mort won six awards including the Grand Prize at the 23rd edition of the National Film Festival of Tangier (FNF).

Gadalla Gubara (Arabic: جاد الله جبارة, July 1920 – 21 August 2008) was a Sudanese cameraman, film producer, director and photographer and pioneering figure in African cinema. Over five decades, he produced more than 50 documentaries and three feature films and was a co-founder of both the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers FEPACI and Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO).

Nomzamo Mbatha (b. 13 July 1990), is a South African actress. She became first known for her portrayal of one of the principal characters of the popular South African television drama series Isibaya from the premier of the series in 2013 until 2020. In 2021 she made the leap to Hollywood and the big screen where she was cast in a lead role in Coming 2 America. In 2023 Mbatha took on the role of Queen Nandi, the mother of the iconic 18th century King Shaka in the South African television series Shaka iLembe as well as served as executive producer.

Quote

"Growing up, you hear a lot about American heroes, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Winnie Mandela. You’re asking yourself, ‘Where are the Nigerian heroes?’ We must begin to tell those stories. A lot of our children do not have that historical perspective. They don’t get these stories because we’re not producing enough of them."

Bolanle Austen-Peters, director of biopics Funmilayo Ransom-Kuti (2022) and House of Ga’a (2024).

Things You Can Do

Are you interested in contributing and enhancing content on Wikipedia about African Film and Television? Link here to the AfroCreatives WikiProject +film community where you can learn about how to participate in our activities.

Featured Film Score

Neptune Frost (2021) is a US-Rwandan science fiction musical co-directed by the husband-wife team of Saul Williams and Rwandan Anisia Uzeyman. It stars Cheryl Isheja, Elvis Ngabo, Eliane Umuhire and Kaya Free.

The film features an original score and album titled "Unanimous Goldmine", also by Saul Williams. Filmed in Rwanda and set in Burundi, the story follows a cosmic romance between an intersex hacker and a coltan miner. It unfolds in the past, present, and future and the aftermath of the nation's civil war. The musical addresses themes of gender identity, colonialism, authoritarianism, and the connective thread of technology. According to Williams:

“This project was conceived as a musical. And for me, the first step in trying to envision this world was to envision the sounds that belonged to it. That was the first step, then writing to and around those sounds. So the story, the characters, much of it really was pulled from the music. I’ve been going to the music thinking of the story. One of the earliest songs for the project was a song called “Burundi,” which was my first take in trying to map out the synopsis, and it happened in a song. From there, we were able to pull ideas, and then other songs would be written and we would say, “What character does this belong to? Whose voice is this? Who’s singing?”

The film debuted at the 2020 Cannes and was well-received by critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 86 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.70/10.

Featured Page to Screen

Tug of War (2021) is Tanzanian film directed by Amil Shivji based on the award-winning Swahili novel Vuta N’kuvute by Adam Shafi. A coming-of-age political drama about love and resistance set in the final years of British colonial Zanzibar, the film was awarded the Tanit d'Or, the top prize at Tunisia's Carthage Film Festival and was Tanzania's entry for the Academy Award Best International Feature category. In Shivji’s own words:

I read it as a high schooler, as it was a part of the teaching material in our Swahili class. It is one of those novels that you just can’t put down once you begin reading it. The writing is extremely descriptive and cinematic. All I could picture were moving images, sounds and tastes of Zanzibar island. That’s when I decided to adapt it for the big screen

After analysing chapter by chapter, I chose characteristics first before I chose characters. The novel is quite long with a lot of faces and places. I combined different traits into one or two characters to allow a smaller ensemble cast to flourish. For the revolutionaries cast, I spent time talking to politically active comrades from the time who shared stories of themselves, or their loved ones who were up against the British in the ‘50s. This really fed into backstories for Denge and the boys. Mwajuma, the taarab singer was modeled around the famous Siti Bint Saad who is still considered the mother of Taarab in East Africa."