Portal:African cinema/Page to screen

Selected screen list

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The Blue Elephant (2014) is an Egyptian thriller-horror-fantasy mash-up based on the 2012 eponymous novel by Egyptian writer Ahmed Mourad. The book was the best-selling novel at the Cairo International Book Fair in 2013 and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. The director Marwan Hamed was inspired to adapt the book noting “We do not do thrillers and fantasy films in Egypt and I love these genres”.

In adapting his books to film, Mourad said: “The reading audience, which represents two percent of the Egyptian society, is not the same as the cinema audience, which represents 35-40 percent of the Egyptian people. I need to be aware of the required criteria [for adaptation], and I need to view the text as something that is not sacred, susceptible to criticism — change and tweaking to fit the cinema”.

The movie features Karim Abdel Aziz, Khaled El Sawy, and Nelly Karim, among Egypt’s biggest film stars, and follows a troubled psychiatrist who returns to his post at a psychiatric hospital after 5 years following the death of his wife and daughter. Discovering that a patient and old friend is accused of murdering his wife, Yehia becomes enmeshed in a tangled web of mystery as he tries to save his friend and in the process, himself. The film was a box-office success in Egypt and the Arab region and its 2019 sequel Blue Elephant 2 went on to become the highest-grossing film in Egypt. In 2023 Mourad confirmed that a third installment of the franchise was in development.

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a 2019 drama film based on the memoir of the same name by Malawian author and inventor William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. The film starred and was directed by British Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. It tells the story of William, who as a young Malawian schoolboy builds a windmill to save his village from drought and famine. The film received praise for Ejiofor’s direction and the performances.

It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and began streaming on Netflix in March 2019. It was submitted as the British entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards but was not nominated.

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John Boyega

Half of a Yellow Sun is a 2013 Nigerian historical drama film. The film was directed by Biyi Bandele and is based onthe best-selling novel of the same name by writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Taking place during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), a conflict caused by religious and political differences between the Igbo ethnic group and Muslim Hausa-Fulanis , the film follows the lives of twin sisters Olanna and Kainene from a wealthy Nigerian family as they navigate love, loss and political turmoil.

The film features Thandiwe Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor and an ensemble cast that includes Onyeka Onwenu, Genevieve Nnaji, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, O.C. Ukeje, Zack Orji, and John Boyega in one of his first film roles. The film, which had a budget of $10 million, the largest for a Nollywood film at that point,  was shot across five weeks in Tinapa Studio, Calabar and Creek Town, Nigeria. Bandele listed malaria and typhoid as two of the major challenges of the shoot, with several members of the cast and crew becoming ill, including star Thandiwe Newton. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was nonetheless a box office success, becoming the highest-grossing Nigerian film before it was overtaken by The Wedding Party in 2016.

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A cartoon of Queen Sarraounia in the official poster of FESPACO 2023

Sarraounia (1986), a historical drama film directed by Mauritanian director, Med Hondo and co-produced by Burkina Faso, Mauritania and France. The film tells the story of the of the Queen of the Aznas’s resistance of the Hausas of West Africa in the face of French colonialism. The film was adapted from the1980 novel of the same name by the Nigerien novelist and poet Abdoulaye Mamani. Shot in Burkina Faso.the film cost $3,000,000, which was raised over seven years by Burkinabé financiers and Hondo's own production company. After being shown in several African countries, the film achieved widespread success and won the First Prize (Étalon de Yennenga) at the 1987 Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO).

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Khanyi Mbau

Happiness is a Four-Letter Word is a 2016 South African romantic drama film directed by Thabang Moyela and written by Busisiwe Ntintili based on a novel of the same name by Nozizwe Cynthia Jele. The novel won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region and the M-Net film prize at the 2011 M-Net Literary Awards. It revolves around three women: Zaza (Khanyi Mbau), a glamourous trophy wife; Nandi (Mmabatho Montsho), a successful lawyer; and Princess (Renate Stuurman), an art gallery owner – as they navigate the complexities of happiness and societal expectations. The film was a box office success, and a sequel titled Happiness Ever After was released on Netflix in 2021.

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Tug of War (Vuta N'Kuvute)film poster

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."

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Deon Meyer

Trackers (2019), is a South-African co-produced crime thriller television series. It's an adaptation of South African writer Deon Meyer's best-selling 2011 novel, his seventh and the second to be adapted to the small screen.  It is the first co-production between South African pay-TV channel M-Net, German public broadcaster ZDF, and the US's Cinemax. The six-part series finds its three main characters embroiled in a violent conspiracy involving organized crime, smuggled diamonds and rhinos, the CIA, and an international terrorist plot. It was MNet's most-watched show of 2019.

Deon Meyer worked closely with the show's writing team in the adaption.

"As an author, I think you are always too close to the book and too subjective to take the adaptation decisions on your own. We spent perhaps more time discussing and brainstorming the script than on any other aspect of the TV show and I was very involved with that. I think we all had a similar vision. Let’s use the book as an inspiration but not as the gospel."

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Wole Soyinka

Kongi's Harvest is a 1970s Nigerian drama film directed by Ossie Davis. The film was adapted from a screenplay by Wole Soyinka's 1965 play of the same name. Produced by Francis Oladele's Calpenny Nigeria Films, it was the first production by a Nigerian indigenous company. The film revolves around the degeneration of personal rule in post-colonial Africa and satirizes the resulting tyranny reflected between a populist politician and a traditional ruler. The film was said to reflect the rising trend of authoritarian one-man regimes in Africa. Soyinka, a Nigerian playwright, poet, and the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, also starred in the leading role as the dictator of an African nation. At the time of the film's release, Soyinka dissociated himself from the film and denounced the changes that had been made to his screenplay.

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