African Glory

The Nine Muses

2010

Part documentary, part personal essay, this experimental film combines archive imagery with the striking wintry landscapes of Alaska to tell the story of immigrant experience coming into the UK from 1960 onwards.

Albert Schweitzer

1957

This biographical docudrama traces the life of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, from his birth in Alsace, up to the age of 30 when he made the decision to go to French Equatorial Africa and build his jungle hospital. The latter half of the film encompasses a full day in the hospital-village, following the octogenarian Samaritan in his daily rounds.

The Scientist of Sound

2017

Thursday 27th of October 2016 – Teatro Espace, Turin. Mulatu Astatke is a musician, composer, arranger and Ethiopia’s cultural ambassador. He’s known as the godfather of ethiojazz, a unique blend of jazz, traditional Ethiopian music, latin, caribbean reggae and afrofunk. Born in 1943 in Jimma, Mulatu studied music not only in Ethiopia but also in UK and USA. In 2005 he contributed to the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch’s film “Broken Flowers”, reaching a new public worldwide.

Jaguar

1967

Jaguar, a kind of road movie on foot, tells of the journey of three friends, Damouré, Lam and Illo, on their way to the Gold Coast where they hope to make a fortune in order to return to their village in a few months.

Ancestral Voices

2011

An educational documentary spanning two continents, opening up a much-needed debate about traditional African spiritual systems; their cosmologies, ideologies and underlying ethical principles. Modern science no longer refutes the origins of mankind being in Africa and similarities in the cosmological ideologies of African esoteric systems with those found many established world religions today, suggest that it was not only people that migrated, but also concepts and themes that then provided bedrock for the formation of other systems of belief.

Return to Gorée

2007

Because jazz is the miraculous product of the horror of slavery, Youssou N'Dour returned to the slave route and the music they created, in search of new inspiration. Accompanied by the blind Swiss pianist Moncef Genoud and the Director of the Gorée House of Slaves Museum, Joseph N'Diaye, the Senegalese singer wrote new songs during this initiatory voyage which took him to the USA then to Europe. At Gorée, an island just off the Senegalese coast and symbol of the slave trade, his memorable concert marked the end of this quest and the start of a new challenge: making today's generation aware of the tragedy of slavery, the importance of not forgetting and the need for reconciliation.

Ganga Zumba

1963

The life of a runaway slave who founded the Quilombo dos Palmares, an outlaw community of Brazilian slaves.

Out of Darkness

2016

Out of Darkness is a full length three-part documentary by director Amadeuz Christ (Δ+), examining the untold history of African people, the African cultural contribution to the nations of the world, and the events that have contributed to the condition of African people today. Out of Darkness will explore the Nubian/Kushitic origins of Nile Valley Civilization, contact between Africa and the Americas since the times of antiquity, as well as the influence of the Moors in Europe leading to Europe’s intellectual Renaissance. In addition, the film will analyze the history of modern day racism, the concept of “white supremacy,” the impact of Hip Hop as a social movement, and the idea of nationhood. Out of Darkness is narrated by Prof. Kaba Kamene and co-stars Dr. Umar Johnson, Dr. Claud Anderson, Tim Wise, Prof. James Small, Dr. Joy DeGruy, Anthony Browder, Sabir Bey, Atlantis Browder, and Taj Tarik Bey.

Medea

1973

Ben Caldwell’s Medea, a collage piece made on an animation stand and edited entirely in the camera, combines live action and rapidly edited still images of Africans and African Americans which function like flashes of history that the unborn child will inherit. Caldwell invokes Amiri Baraka’s poem “Part of the Doctrine” in this experimental meditation on art history, Black imagery, identity and heritage.

Rivers of Fire and Ice

1968

A Wildlife Safari through Africa.

52 Blocks: Show and Prove

2007

As beautiful and sleek as it is deadly, 52 Blocks merits special conservation efforts as the United States' only existing native martial culture, as it is indeed, the jazz of the martial arts world. Across the African diaspora, there are manifestations of African-derived warrior-dances, capoeira in brazil, mani in Cuba, ladja in Martinique, pinge in Haiti- yet the US offshoot has remained esoteric, because it was suppressed throughout slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow and then obscured in the criminal justice system. The history, interviews and training of the martial arts style that created Breakdance and boxing greats like Mike Tyson.

The Adventure

2013

In 2011, as tens of thousands of migrants, Loss, and Madess Moussa arrived in Europe via Turkey. Required by EU law to remain in Greece, they only want one thing : to leave. Therefore earn the money needed to start is an obsession and all means are good. The film "The Adventure" follows the lives of these three Ivorians to Athens - their sense of enclosure, strategies to find money, failover illegally, attempts to start - and explores what is at stake, individually and collectively during migration: relations to other migrant communities, friendship, betrayal, solidarity, mafias and violence.

Villa Madjo

2023

The Last of the Babingas

1990

In the equatorial forest of Congo Brazzaville and the Central African Republic pygmies live. Over-exploitation and waste of resources have had a significant impact on the lives of Pygmies. The story is based on Mangala an old and wise voice of these disappearing people.

Nzale

1985

The folkloric group "Nzale," founded in 1979 in Bangui, practices a traditional dance called "M'baka M'Bokou," which means "strength" and is a symbol of victory. It is a battle dance: each dancer wears the skin of the animal he wishes to incarnate. One dancer stands in the middle of a circle and fights the other dancers who come to confront him one after another.