When We Were Kings

It's 1974. Muhammad Ali is 32 and thought by many to be past his prime. George Foreman is ten years younger and the heavyweight champion of the world. Promoter Don King wants to make a name for himself and offers both fighters five million dollars apiece to fight one another, and when they accept, King has only to come up with the money. He finds a willing backer in Mobutu Sese Suko, the dictator of Zaire, and the "Rumble in the Jungle" is set, including a musical festival featuring some of America's top black performers, like James Brown and B.B. King.

አድዋ

In 1896, Ethiopia, an African nation, largely armed with spears and knives, defeats a well-equipped and organized Italian military bent on colonization.

Memory Books - Damit du mich nie vergisst...

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.

Der Weiße mit dem Schwarzbrot

Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.

Hirde Dyama

The first Hirde Dyama National Festival of Culture of the Republic of Guinea was held in March 1970 in the country's capital city of Conakry. The film features many colorful and diverse performances and highlights the protection of traditional West African cultural traditions and art forms under President Ahmed Sékou Touré.

Pirates : menaces sur le commerce mondial

The French researcher Bertrand Monnet visits pirates in Nigeria and Somalia to learn how they make money from oil theft and kidnapping.

Portrait of a Lone Farmer

Toorumi Pojad

In the same vein as Meri's other documentations, this one takes advantage of the glasnost policy to discuss the social and ecologic impact of the Russian oil industry on the natives and the lands they inhabit.

Foccart, l'homme qui dirigeait l'Afrique

Darwin's Nightmare

Africa in the sixties. The Nile perch, a ravenous predator, is introduced into Lake Victoria as a scientific experiment, causing the extinction of many native species. Its meat is exported everywhere in exchange for weapons, creating a globalized evil alliance on the lake shores. An infernal nightmare in the real world that wipes out Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

Song from the Forest

25 years ago, Louis Sarno, an American, heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle and stayed. He than recorded over 1000 hours of original BaAka music. Now he is part of the BaAka community and raises his pygmy son, Samedi. Fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America. On this journey Louis realizes he is not part of this globalized world anymore but globalization has also arrived in the rainforest. The BaAka depend on Louis for their survival. Father and son return to the melodies of the jungle but the question remains: How much longer will the songs of the forest be heard?

Les Seigneurs de la forêt

Documentary about the inhabitants, both human and animal, of the Belgian Congo. Released in 1958.

Frantz Fanon, trajectoire d'un révolté

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

A Joking Relationship

This film depicts a moment of flirtation between N!ai, the young wife of /Gunda, and her great-uncle /Ti!kay. The two share a "joking relationship," a Ju/'hoan kin relationship which provides opportunities for casual intimacy, emotional release, and support.

Back To Africa

N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen

Tchai is the word used by Ju/'hoansi to describe getting together to dance and sing; n/um can be translated as medicine, or supernatural potency. In the 1950's, when this film was shot, Ju/'hoansi gathered for "medicine dances" often, usually at night, and sometimes such dances lasted until dawn.

N!owa T'ama: The Melon Tossing Game

Women from three separate Ju/'hoan bands have gathered at a mangetti grove at !O to play an intense game in which under-tones of social and personal tensions become apparent.

Si-Gueriki, la reine-mère

Si-Gueriki is the story of the confrontation of a young man with his history, his roots and culture.

Festival Panafricain d'Alger

Festival panafricain d'Alger is a documentary by William Klein of the music and dance festival held 40 years ago in the streets and in venues all across Algiers. Klein follows the preparations, the rehearsals, the concerts… He blends images of interviews made to writers and advocates of the freedom movements with stock images, thus allowing him to touch on such matters as colonialism, neocolonialism, colonial exploitation, the struggles and battles of the revolutionary movements for Independence.

Die Wildnis stirbt!

A reportage cross-cutting film about the development of Africa from 1900-1936, using archive footage and film material from earlier African expeditions.