Title: Afrique, je te plumerai
Country: Cameroon
Director: Jean-Marie Teno
Year: 1992
Run Time: 88 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “A stinging rebuke of European colonialism..gives potent evidence that the independence won from the French was more ceremonial than substantial.”-San Francisco Chronicle
Summary: This is an overview of one hundred years of cultural imperialism in Africa. Teno uses the country Cameroon for a case study of the devastation of traditional African societies by imposed colonial cultures.
Format: VHS

Title: Borom Sarret
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Year: 1966
Run Time: 20 minutes
Summary: This film uses a mixture of documentary techniques and fiction to tell the story of a young cart-driver in Dakar who is robbed by a succession of dishonest passengers, and ends up having his cart confiscated by the police, losing with it not only his means of livelihood but his sole claim to self-respect in an exploited and poverty-ridden community
Format: VHS

Title: Ça twiste A Poponguine
Country: Senegal
Director: Moussa Sene Absa
Starring:Coura Ba, Jean-François Balmer, Ousmane Bo, Abou Camara
Year: 1993
Run Time: 90 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “A sort of “African Side Story,” deliciously light with moments of real grace.”-Liberation (Paris)
Summary: The story takes place in a remote beachside village where the local teenagers are divided into rival cultural camps. This film celebrates young Africans’ ability to blend French and American culture into their own.
Format: VHS

Title: Camp de Thiaroye English The Camp at Thiaroye
Country: Algeria/Senegal/Tunisia
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Sidiki Bakaba, Hamed Camara, Philippe Chamelat
Year: 1987
Run Time: 152 minutes
Summary: In this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home.
Format: VHS

Title: Ceddo
Country: Cameroon
Director: Jean-Marie Téno
Starring: Tabate Ndiaye, Moustapha Yade, Ismaila Diagne, Matoura Dia
Year: 1977
Run Time: 95 minutes
Summary: The Ceddo try to preserve their traditional African culture against the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade. When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam. After trying to rescue the princess, various heirs to the throne are killed, and the King dies from a snake-bite.
Format: VHS

Title: Clando
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Avs Bodule Moukilo, Guillaume Nana, Raphael de Chedjou, and Joseph Momo
Year: 1996
Run Time: 95 minutes
Summary: Clando tells the story of a former computer programmer, Sobgui, whose life has collapsed after his arrest and torture for minor involvement with an anti-government student group. Reduced to drivinig a clando, or qypsy cab, he eagerly accepts the opportunity to go to Germany to buy some cabs and to search for Rigoberto, the long-lost prodigal son of the taxi fleet owner. There he has an affair with a young German human rights activist who convinces him that, "if you don't change societ, society will change you." He also sees how emigration has reduced Rigoberto to a penniless drukard by denying him any meaningful social role. Together they return to Cameroon with no clear strategy except that they will wait no longer to take back their country.
Format: VHS

Title: Emitai
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Pierre Blanchard, Robert Fontaine, Michel Remaudeau
Year: 1971
Run Time: 101 minutes
Summary: As World War II is going on in Europe, a conflict arises between the French and the Diola-speaking tribe of Africa, prompting the village women to organize their men to sit beneath a tree to pray.
Format: VHS

Title: Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts
Country: Togo
Director: Anne-Laure Folly
Year: 1994
Run Time: 52 minutes
Acclaim/Award: none
Summary: This is a film about African women. We meet a woman active in the movement against female genital mutilation. She explains why in Africa it is easier to oppose this practice as a health issue rather than a women’s rights issue.
Format: VHS

Title: Finzan
Country: Mali
Director: Cheick Oumar Sissoko
Starring:Oumar Namory Keita, Koti, Diarrah Siongo
Year: 1990
Run Time: 107 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Sissoko shows a sure hand..Finzan evokes furious sympathy for the plight of African women.”-Variety
Summary: The story of two women’s rebellion. Their desire to control their own lives threatens the traditions of male supremacy in the village.
Format: VHS

Title: La Genese English Genesis
Country: Mali
Director: Cheick Oumar Sissoko
Starring: Sotigui Kouyaté, Salif Keita, Balla Moussa Keita, Fatoumata Diawara, and Maimouna Hélène Diarra
Year: 1999
Run Time: 102 minutes
Summary: Inspired by the Holy Book of Genesis, this film tells the power struggle between two families: a clan of herders led by Jacob and another clan of hunters fronted by his brother Esau. Caught in the crossfire is their cousin, Hamor and his tribe of farmers.
Format: VHS

Title: Guelwaar
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Omar Seck, Ndiawar Diop, Mame Ndoumbe Diop
Year: 1993
Run Time: 115 minutes
Acclaim/Award:
Summary: The film explores the heterogenous nature of identities formulated by multiple histories of internal and external colonizations. Using our analytical premise of being, becoming and belonging, the film presents a picture of Africa as a culturally diverse and hybrid place where processes of enunciating and performing subjectivity are characterized by contradictions.
Format: VHS

Title: Guimba the Tyrant
Country: Mali/Burkina Faso
Director: Cheick Oumar Sissoko
Starring: Falabo issa Traore, Bala Moussa Keita and Habib Dembele
Year: 1995
Run Time: 93 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner of the Grand Prize at FESPACO
Summary: Set in the mythical kingdom of ancient Mali, Guimba tells the story of a despot who uses his dark magical powers to rule the kingdom.
Format: VHS

Title: Hyenas
Country: Senegal
Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
Starring: Mansour Diouf and Ami Diakhate
Year: 1992
Run Time: 113 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Given three and a half stars from the New York Post and New York Daily News
Summary: A forgotten act of cruelty comes back thirty years later to haunt a respected man.
Format: VHS

Title: Jesus of Montreal French Jésus de Montréal
Country: Canada
Director: Denys Arcano
Starring: Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Robert Lepage, Gilles Pelletier and Rémy Girard
Year: 1990
RunTime: 2 hours and 1minute
Acclaim/Award: “Profoundly moving and savagely funny.”-Leonard Maltin
Summary: The story of an out of work actor who updates the staid verson of The Passion Play and reinterprets the famous play.
Format: VHS

Title: Krik? Krak! Tales of a Nightmare
Country: Haiti
Director: Jac Avila
Year: 1988
Run Time: 82 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Called "outstanding film of the year" by the London Film Festival.
Summary: A forgotten act of cruelty comes back thirty years later to haunt a respected man.
Format: VHS

Title: Mandabi
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Makhouradia Gueye, Ynousse N'Diaye, Isseu Niang
Year: 1968
Run Time: 90 minutes
Summary:A money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.
Format: VHS

Title: Monday’s Girls
Country: Nigeria
Director: Ngozi Onwurah
Year: 1993
Run Time: 50 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “A film that grips and moves…A shot in the arm for ethnographic television.”-Time In (London)
Summary: This is an up-to-the-minute look at tradition in today’s changing Africa. It examines the women’s initiation ceremony of the Niger River delta through two young women.
Format: VHS

Title: Mon oncle Antoine English My Uncle Antoine
Country: Canada
Director: Claude Jutra
Starring: Jacques Gagnon and Jean Duceppe
Year: 1971
Run Time: 104 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Canadian Academy Award Winner of Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay
Summary: This is the story of a 15-year-old boy in a small, economically depressed mining town filmed in the backwoods of Quebec using many of the local inhabitants.
Format: VHS

Title: La Noire de…
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Mbissine Thérèse Diop, Anne-Marie Jelinik, Robert Fontaine
Year: 1965
Run Time: 60 minutes
Summary: A Senegalese woman is eager to find a better life abroad. She takes a job as a governess for a French family, but finds her duties reduced to those of a maid after the family moves from Dakar to the south of France.
Format: VHS

Title: Pièces d'identités
Country: Belgium/Congo
Director: Mweze Ngangura
Starring: Jean-Louis Daulne,Gérard Essomba, Herbert Flack
Year: 1998
Run Time: 93 minutes
Acclaim/Award: "A dash of gentle Congolese/Belgian charisma, part comedy, drama, thriller and romance." --Los Angeles Times
Summary: A Zairian king arrives in Brussels in search of his long-lost daughter.
Format: VHS

Title: Quartier Mozart
Country: Cameroon
Director: Jean-Pierre Bekolo
Starring: Serge Amougou, Sandrine Ola'a, Jimmy Biyong
Year: 1992
Run Time: 80minutes
Acclaim/Award: "An exotic and erotic blend of magic and machismo that offers a sharp social satire." -Philadelphia Inquirer
Summary: The story of the not-very-sentimental education of a young schoolgirl known as Queen of the 'Hood. Maman Thekla, the local sorceress, helps her enter the body of a young man, My Guy, so she can discover for herself the real "sexual politics" or the quarter.
Format: VHS

Title: Saaraba
Country: Senegal
Director: Amadou Saalum Seck
Year: 1988
Run Time: 86 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Should be seen by anyone interested in new directions in world cinema. A distinctive independent voice.”-Director, Charles Burnett
Summary: Saaraba is a word for a mythical place free of the misery and contradictions of daily existence. Seck uses this as a metaphor for the dreams and disillusionment of Senegal and Africa in the decades since independence.
Format: VHS

Title: Sango Malo
Country: Cameroon/Burkina Faso
Director: Bassek ba Kobhio
Starring: Jean Abanda, Epaye Monny Akwa, Daniel Bakang
Year: 1991
Run Time: 94 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “A valuable look at the realities of village life…The director shines with a lively script and complex characters.”-Variety
Summary: The tale of two school teachers’ and two philosophies of education.
Format: VHS

Title: Scent of a Green Papaya French Mui Du Du Xanh
Country: Vietnam
Director: Tran Anh Hung
Starring: Tran Nu Yen Khe, Truong Thi Loc, Nguyen Anh Hoa, Vuon Hoa Hoi and Lu Man San
Year: 1993
Run Time: 104 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Academy Award and Winner of the Cannes Film Festival
Summary: A love story set in Vietnam in the 1950’s and 1960’s, this is the story of a shy peasant girl who comes to Saigon at the age of ten as a household servant.
Format: VHS, in Vietnamese with English subtitles

Title: The Silences of the Palace
Country: Tunisia
Director: Moufida Tlatli
Starring: Amel Hedhili, Hend Sabri, Najia Ouerghi and Ghalia Lacroix
Year: 1996
Run Time: 127 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Stunning.”-Boston Globe
Summary: The story is set in the shimmering reflection of royal life before the revolution. A young servant girl is misused by her masters and wooed by the rebel.
Format: VHS

Title: Sugar Cane Alley French Rue Cases-Nègres
Country: France/Martinique
Director: Euzhan Palcy
Starring: Garry Cadenat, Darling Legitimus, Douta Seck and Joby Bernabe
Year: 1985
RunTime: 107 minutes
Acclaim/Award: Winner of Best Actress Venice Film Festival and the French Cesar Award for Best First Film
Summary: The story takes place on a sugar cane plantation where an 11-year-old orphan who wins a scholarship at a school in the city. His grandmother is willing to sacrifice everything for his chance at an education and an escape from the fields.
Format: VHS

Title: Ta Dona
Country: Mali
Director: Adama Drabo
Starring: Djeneba Diawara, Balla Moussa Keita, Diarrah Sanogo
Year: 1991
Run Time: 100 minutes
Summary: The story of the quest for secret knowledge by a young Bambara man. Here the hero is not a 13th century warrior but a modern agricultural expert in the Ministry of Rivers and Forests.
Format: VHS

Title: Taafe Fanga
Coutnry: Mali
Director: Adama Drabo
Starring: Fanta Berete, Ramate Drabo, Ibrahim Koïta
Year: 1997
Run Time: 95 minutes
Summary: A tale of comic revolution in which women’s and men’s roles are reversed. The story is structured around the core Dogon belief that cosmogony, myth, history and the present interpenetrate or repeat themselves continually to bring primal forces back into proper balance.
Format: VHS

Title: Tableau Ferraille
Country: Senegal
Director: Moussa Sene Absa
Starring: Ismaël Lô, Ndèye Fatou Ndaw, and Thierno Ndiaye
Year: 1998
Run Time: 85 minutes
Summary: Tells the story of an idealistic young politician's rise and fall. Daam, a well-intentioned but vacillating European-trained politician must choose between two social paradigms exemplified by his two wives. The first, Gagnesiri, is the village beauty, who waits patiently for Daam. Unfortunately, they are unable to conceive a child, so Daam takes European-educated Kiné, who is eager to get ahead by marrying a politician. Daam becomes involved in a shady business deal with Président, a local businessman; when the details are made public, he is forced out in disgrace.
Format: VHS

Title: These Hands
Country:Tanzania
Director: Flora M'mbugu-Schelling
Year: 1992
Run Time: 45 minutes
Acclaim/Award: "An exceptional documentary...A hallucinatory voyage" -Liberation (Paris)
Summary: A day in the life of Mozambican women refugees working in a quarry outside Dar es Salaam.
Format: VHS

Title: Touki Bouki
Country: Senegal
Director: Djibril Diop Mambéty
Starring: Christoph Colomb, Ousseynou Diop, Aminata Fall
Year: 1973
Run Time: 85 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Tears up the screen with fantasies of African modernity never before seen in film or literature.”-NYU
Summary: The story of two young lovers who long to escape to Paris.
Format: VHS

Title: Udju Azul Di Yonta
Country: Guinea-Bissau
Director: Flora Gomes
Starring: Jorge Quintino Biague, Marcelo Cabral, Jacquelina Camara
Year: 1991
Run Time: 990 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “A richly shaded vision of post-colonial African society.”-New York Times
Summary: The story of three people so in love with their dreams that they miss the real opportunities life offers.
Format: VHS

Title: La Vie Est belle
Country: Zaire
Director: Mweze Ngangura and Benoît Lamy
Starring: Papa Wemba, Bibi Krubwa, Kanko Kasongo
Year: 1987
Run Time: 85 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “ A genial musical comedy offering a good look at Zaire.”-New York Times
Summary: The story of a poor rural musician who realizes that to succeed in today’s music world he must go to the city and break into radio and television.
Format: VHS

Title: La Vie sur terre
Country: Mali/Mauritania
Director: Abderrrahmane Sissako
Starring: Nana Baby, Bourama Coulibaly, Keita Bina Gaousso
Year: 1998
Run Time: 61 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Luminous, poetic, reflective and pointed.”-Village Voice
Summary: A fictional documentary of daily life in the village of Sokolo that reminds us that much of the world’s population still travels on foot, by bicycle or donkey cart.
Format: VHS

Title: Wend Kuuni
Country: Burkina Faso
Director: Gaston Kaboré
Starring: Serge Yanogo, Rosine Yanogo, Joseph Nikiema
Year: 1982
Run Time: 70 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “ A gentle fable recalling a time of peace and plenty.”-New York Times
Summary: A mute, memoryless child is found under a tree by a peddler. He is adopted by the peddler’s village who in gratitude rename him “God’s gift. We learn how bigotry and cruelty drove him to discover compassion of his adopted village.
Format: VHS

Title: Woubi Cheri
Country: Ivory Coast
Director: Philip Brooks and Laurent Bocahut
Year: 1998
Run Time: 62 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Woubi Cheri is one of those rare documentaries which explores souls and lives.”-Libération
Summary: This film gives African homosexuals a chance to describe their world in their own words.
Format: VHS

Title: Xala
Country: Senegal
Director: Ousmane Sembène
Starring: Fatim Diagne, Makhouredia Gueye, Thierno Leye
Year: 1974
Run Time: 123 minutes
Summary:It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed. White money still controls the government. One official, Aboucader Beye, known by the title "El Hadji," takes advantage of some of that money to marry his third wife, to the sorrow and chagrin of his first two wives and the resentment of his nationalist daughter. But he discovers on his wedding night that he has been struck with a "xala," a curse of impotence.
Format: VHS

Title: Yeelen
Country: Mali/Burkina Faso
Director: Souleymane Cissé
Starring: Balla Moussa Keita, Issaka Kane and Soumba Traoure
Year: 1987
Run Time: 105 minutes
Acclaim/Award: “Conceivably the greatest African film ever made….not to be missed.”-Chicago Reader
Summary: This is the adaption of an ancient oral legend from Mali. Set in the powerful Mali Empire of the 13th century, a young warrior must confront an evil sorcerer who is also his father.
Format: DVD

Title: Chocolat
Country: Cameroon/France/West Germany
Directed by: Claire Denis
Year: 1988
Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet
Summary: A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon. Her strongest memories are of the family's houseboy, Protée - a man of great nobility, intelligence and beauty - and the intricate nature of relationships in a racist society.
Run time: 105 min.
Format: VHS
Library Call Number: PN1997.C47 1990