African Cinema

This film, the first in what has become a semi-autobiographical trilogy for Smihi, follows the everyday experiences of Mohamed-Larbi Salmi against the changing Moroccan society. In 1950s Tangier, Larbi Salmi is a young, timid, pre-teen, boy, trying to make sense of the gentle religious upbringing of his father, the secular education offered him in French school, and his budding desires for the forbidden pleasures of the cinema and the women he meets through it. All the while the film offers a tapestry of fifties Tangier, an international zone marked by the influence of Arab, Berber, European and American histories. ‘This film is dedicated,’ Smihi has stated, ‘to all those in the Arab world who cry out, “long live our freedom, all of our freedoms.”’Read More »

An adultery drama set in a bourgeois family in Bamako, Mali, where tensions are rife within the household: Mimi, bored with the polygamy and routine of marriage, wants to leave Issa. She has a lover, Abba. How will all three cope with this?Read More »

Summary from the Rotterdam Film Festival:
Ali is the image of modern Africa. He happily returns from a football match on his motorbike but a nasty surprise is waiting for him at his parents’ home: he finds Haoua, his bride-to-be, waiting for him. The wedding is celebrated shortly afterwards and the two begin living together under the same roof. They are strangers but cannot stand each other. Haoua is the classic traditional woman who has just arrived from the village, God-fearing and faithful to the laws of tradition. Ali’s friends advise him to look for a second wife. He meets Henriette, an uninhibited and provocative city girl, the woman of his dreams. To meet Henriette’s constant requests, Ali ‘borrows’ some money from the coffers of commander Soleymane, but he is discovered and ends up in prison. Henriette is furious and leaves him, whilst Haoua cries for him in despair.Read More »

Summary from the IFFR website:
This Djerma legend concerns a cruel king who cunningly puts the wife of one of his subjects to the test. Her humble fisherman spouse is sent away with a ruse and given a ring, to return in a year’s time. Can the wife be faithful and the husband return the ring?Read More »

Quote:
Sudanese Film Group – Films by Suliman Elnour, Eltayeb Mahdi & Ibrahim Shaddad

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of filmmakers working in the film department of the Ministry of Culture at the time published the magazine CINEMA. This group founded the Sudanese Film Group (SFG) in April 1989 in order to be able to act more independently of the state. Their aim was to be involved in all aspects of film production, screening and teaching and to maintain the Sudanese* passion for cinema. On 30 June 1989, however, the coup, which brought with it a distrust of all forms of art, ended all cultural endeavours. All civil society organisations were banned. In 2005 the firm hand of the state was finally loosened somewhat and SFG was able to register again.Read More »

Ibrahim Shaddad’s graduation film Jagdpartie (1964), which he shot at the Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg (now: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF), is a treatise on racism. Shot in a forest in Brandenburg, it uses a Western look to portray the hunt for a Black man.Read More »

The short film Jamal (1981) by Ibrahim Shaddad is a report from the life of a camel, most of which plays out in a dreary, small room – a sesame mill.Read More »

A young girl, Kodou, submits herself, somewhat out of bravado, to a tattooing practice. But in the middle of the ceremony, and while the matrons are singing to her, Kodou runs away – a serious offence to the age-old traditions of the village. Kodou’s family feels discredited, her friends make fun of her. Confined to a quasi-quarantine, Kodou goes mad and violently attacks the young children. Her parents end up taking her to a psychiatric hospital run by a European doctor, but to no avail. They then decide to submit her to a traditional exorcism session. Then Kodou is brought back home. Will she be cured?Read More »

A young man neglects the ritual offerings to the voodoo deities and invokes their anger. His family suffers the consequences: house burned, crops destroyed. He leaves for the city to try to help them, but finds himself caught up in drugs. He ends up meeting a young girl who encourages him to return to the village. They marry in the voodoo tradition and the curse is lifted.Read More »