The Congo Dandies

“La Sape” is a unique movement based in Congo that unites fashion-conscious men who are ready to splurge money they don’t really have on designer clothes. Dressing in stark contrast with their surroundings, these elegant ambiance-makers become true local celebrities… but this fame comes at a price.

Higher Ground

Thomas de Dorlodot and Horacio Llorens journeyed for a personal adventure across the Himalayan mountains. They covered roughly 350km and became the very first paragliders to fly over Rohtang Pass.

L'Algérie au travail

This film is devoted to Algeria's vast equipment plan which has fostered the development of the ports of Algiers and Oran. The inauguration of new aerodromes, roads, the construction of dams and power stations, the development of coal production, the textile and metallurgical industry, the opening of canneries, as well as the phenomenal boom in production of wheat and wine.

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.

Ibogaine: Rite of Passage

Ibogaine is a plant extract that stops drug addiction. In this documentary, a 34-year-old heroin addict undergoes ibogaine therapy with Dr Martin Polanco at the Ibogaine Association, a clinic in Rosarito, Mexico. In Gabon, where use of the iboga root is traditional, a Babongo woman's tribe uses the plant to help her recover from a depressive malaise. Director Benjamin De Loenen interviews people formerly addicted to heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, who share their perspectives about ibogaine treatment.

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.

Finding Fela

Fela Anikulapo Kuti created the musical movement Afrobeat and used it as a political forum to oppose the Nigerian dictatorship and advocate for the rights of oppressed people. This is the story of his life, music, and political importance.

Portrait of a Lone Farmer

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.

Die weiße Gefahr

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.

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.

Der lange Weg ans Licht

Congo: A Journey to the Heart of Africa

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a vast, mineral rich country the size of Western Europe. Alastair Leithead takes an epic journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the far reaches of the Congo river to explore how history has shaped the Congo of today and uncover the lesser told stories of this beautiful, if troubled country. In the largest rainforest outside of the Amazon he comes face to face with its gorillas and hunts with pygmies, he travels into the heart of the Ebola outbreak with United Nations peacekeepers, and explores the cobalt mines which will drive our electric cars of the future.

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.

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.

God Grew Tired of Us

Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

Guangzhou Dream Factory

Guangzhou, a.k.a. Canton, is southern China’s centuries-old trading port. Today the booming metropolis of 14 million is a mecca of mass consumption, its vast international trading centers crammed with every “Made in China” good imaginable. Every year more than half a million Africans travel to Guangzhou where they buy goods to sell back in Africa. Over time, some have chosen to stay, and for these Africans China looks like the new land of opportunity, a place where anything is possible. But is it? Featuring a dynamic cast of men and women from Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, GUANGZHOU DREAM FACTORY weaves the stories of Africans chasing alluring, yet elusive, “Made in China” dreams into a compelling critique of 21st century global capitalism. Following a filmmaker’s journey from Ghana to China and back to Africa, GUANGZHOU DREAM FACTORY provides a rare glimpse of African aspirations in an age of endless outsourcing.

Io sono nata viaggiando

A journey back through Dacia Maraini's and her trips around the world with her close friends cinema director Pier Paolo Pasolini and opera singer Maria Callas. An in-depth story of this fascinating woman's life. Maraini's memories come alive through personal photographs taken on the road as well as her own Super 8 films shot almost thirty years ago.