I recently watched a short documentary from the 1960s about wrestling in Senegal; I ought to explore African cinema more thoroughly.

  • sexywheat [none/use name]
    ·
    1 month ago

    You gotta watch Who Killed Captain Alex by Wakilawood (CW: Pretty sure the commentary overdubs in the video have some misogynistic and probably other offensive content, I can't remember haven't watched it in years).

    So, legend has it, Wakaliwood started out as a dude in Uganda with a camcorder and a laptop with one small hard drive. He could only produce one film at a time, since he had very limited hard drive space and had to delete all his previous files once he started a new film.

    The only known existing copy of this movie (linked on YT above) contains commentary from a "video joker" - which seems to be a sort of African version of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" commentary.

    These days, Wakaliwood makes over $2000 per month on their Patreon.

    10/10 gold star film

  • departee [none/use name]
    ·
    1 month ago

    The only ones I can remember are This is not a burial, It's a resurrection

    And a Sudanese documentary about a filmmaker Talking about trees

  • Vingst [he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_de_Thiaroye

  • 21Gramsci [he/him]
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    1 month ago

    Neptune Frost is a one-of-a-kind movie. It's weird, cryptic, experimental, beautiful, and honestly just a unique experience. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea but it's a movie I won't easily forget.

    Oh, it's also about being trans hackers. And about dying in the cobalt mines.

    • 21Gramsci [he/him]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Fuck I got beaten to the punch...

      Edit: Saloum is an amazing movie, can't recommend it enough!

  • MaoTheLawn [any, any]
    ·
    1 month ago

    African cinema is great, but quite hard to define sometimes. What you'll probably notice is that the majority of great African cinema is from Francophonic African nations. With the French new wave and all that coinciding with easier and more direct migration routes, that's just how it is.

    Anyway, I'm no expert, but here's everything I've seen off the top of my head:

    Classic/early African Cinema:

    • Touki Bouki is a surreal classic. You should definitely start with it. Iirc it's one of ASAP Rocky and Rihanna's favourite films, lol.

    • Any film by Ousmane Sembene

    • Battle Of Algiers isn't by an African director but is essential African cinema.

    • Don't bother with any Wole Soyinka adaptation - he hated all of them, most got changed a lot by studios so their point became pointless.

    Contemporary African Cinema:

    • Mati Diop's films are getting a good look at the moment if you want something more contemporary.

    • Mahamet Saleh Haroun

    • Phillipe Lacote

    ALSO... Carribbean Cinema?

    If you're interested in African cinema, there's a lot more Anglophonic films that mirror a similar African experience in Carribbean cinema:

    • A great one is 'The Harder They Come' - a reggae film about a cop-killing folk hero in Jamaica.

    • Any of Horace Ove's films. He's a great pioneer of black-british film of the Windrush era, and characters in his films often feature African British migrants too. He's got one that's very funny and only an hour long called...

    • 'Black Safari', where he does an 'explorer goes to Africa' style documentary... about England. It's an amazing parody, and really highlights how a camera can make a place look foreign, wild, and marauding, when it's actually very mundane.

  • Eco [she/her, he/him]
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    1 month ago

    ìfé is the first nigerian romance film to star lesbians (possibly even the lgbt community as a whole) afaik. i liked it