Africa

Best African Films

Africa is the heart of the world. Heaped with incredible cultural diversity the continent is a force in the film world that is destined to breach across to cinemas worldwide in the future. You may already have seen some of the best African films featured below already. For example, 2009’s District 9 – an ingenious documentary style science fiction set in South Africa made it big overseas. Africa also has it’s own Hollywood in Nigeria’s Nollywood, which churns out almost as many films as Bollywood every year.

Find the best African films below. My advice would be to start with Black Girl and work your way up to Timbuktu.

Or if you’re looking for the best films from a particular country, head straight to their country pages using the links below:

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

*We’re still looking for the best African films from countries without pages. Send us your recommendations.

101

Jebel Nyoka – Early Marriage vs. Education in South Sudan

Jebel Nyoka Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Jebel Nyoka is a budget South Sudanese movie free to watch on YouTube that touches on the patriarchy and forced marriage. It follows a teenage girl living outside of the capital city in South Sudan. Conflict arises when her parents want her to get married instead of allowing her to finish her studies.

From: South Sudan, Africa
Watch: YouTube, IMDb
Next: The Hand of Fate, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Dhalinyaro

Jebel Nyoka – The Breakdown

Disclaimer: whilst the audio quality is more consistent than other films shot with few resources such as The Hand of Fate, it does contain a very repetitive backing track. It sounds a bit like stock filler for an 80s educational show, and unfortunately is often played over the diegetic sound and dialogue of the movie regardless of the context of the scene (playing over a rape scene as well as over family conversation). So before watching this film, be prepared to fight an urge to mute the audio from time to time.

Jebel Nyoka does have honorable intentions in the screenplay though, which touches on both the patriarchy, the lack of resources for education, and underage marriage. Kiden, our teenage female protagonist has to deal with all these issues – fighting her family and their wish for her to get married instead of supporting her education. The film sides with her and a girl’s right to education by showing her fight against her parents and marriage. However, it feels blind to the power of the patriarchy it unwittingly presents. It positions Kiden’s mother as the villain of the movie – presenting her as the driving force behind Kiden’s underage marriage even though her father holds the position of power in the family. She has to talk to crouch down to talk to him sitting in his chair, and whilst the father agrees to marry their daughter, he blames her when things go awry for pushing him to do it. Jebel Nyoka is quick to blame the female characters for problems held in place by the patriarchy.

It also features a lot of male characters that take charge of Kiden’s life without considering her perspective. Her father is one example, as is her prospective husband, but even the male characters that are presented as ‘good’ take advantage of her. The head of the orphanage is a prime example of this. Whilst he takes her in and provides her with an education, he also ships her off to another family looking for another girl to help out around the house (ironically so their own daughter can focus on her own studies). This action is never questioned, and ultimately the adopted father and the head of the orphanage become the heroes of the film. The focus on portraying benevolence in the men of Jebel Nyoka undermines the positive female story the director tries to create.

Therefore, despite honorable intentions, Jebel Nyoka’s message feels a bit empty. It highlights problems within South Sudanese society (such as underage marriage, poverty and education) without examining their root cause. Instead of looking deeper into these issues, or making a film about Kiden’s perspective, Jebel Nyoka focuses on the men around her, making them the saviors of the movie.

What to Watch Next

For a film which examines the patriarchy from a female student’s perspective, we strongly recommend watching Dhalinyaro from Djibouti. It follows a group of three high school friends facing different problems at home as the exam season starts.

If you’re looking for more low budget African films that deal with the patriarchy and forced marriage, you could watch The Hand of Fate from The Gambia.

Or if you want to watch more African films about kids using their intelligence to find a way out of poverty, try The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

102

Finding Sally (Ethiopia) – Pan African Film Festival 2021

Finding Sally is the story of a 23-year-old woman from an upper-class family who became a communist rebel with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party. Idealistic and in love, Sally got caught up in her country’s revolutionary fervor and landed on the military government’s most wanted list. She went underground and her family never saw her again. Four decades after Sally’s disappearance, Tamara Dawit pieces together her mysterious life in Finding Sally. She revisits the Ethiopian revolution and the terrible massacre that followed, which resulted in nearly every Ethiopian family losing a loved one. Her quest leads her to question notions of belonging, personal convictions and political ideals at a time when Ethiopia is going through important political changes once again.

Tamara’s family story in Finding Sally is a good one, but doesn’t always come across like it. It could have taken a few more artistic liberties to bring out the story a bit more. One example that dampens the mystery is in a scene where Tamara is interviewing her Aunt in Ethiopia. She asks her why she never knew about the existence of her missing Aunt Sally, and her Aunt answers: “I don’t know, she was in all of the family albums.” Her answer immediately shuts down the mystery the director was creating about her missing Aunt.

It’s also clear that they’re not the typical Ethiopian family. The director’s grandfather was a foreign diplomat that took them round the world with them, so they had certain levels of privilege other Ethiopians wouldn’t. But his importance is never hyped up that much, making their family appear pretty normal versus how they probably were. Their uniqueness could have been emphasized more.

Aunt Sally’s role in the communist movement also feels a little unclear. It doesn’t come across that she was an integral part of the movement as her links to the party appear fairly tenuous in Finding Sally. Perhaps there was just not enough information to tell her story in so much detail. It also feels as if the director is caught between telling multiple stories. She uses the narrative of her missing Aunt as a gateway into contemporary Ethiopian history, but also depicts the story of her family history as she reconnects with her family in Ethiopia. In moments, the stories tie together, but the lack of detail in Sally’s story, never fully brings her to life, leaving her role in the revolution and beyond a bit flat.

If you’re looking for a personal story of a family of a diplomat working in a changing country told through personal one on one interviews and photographs, Finding Sally is worth a watch. However, this might not be what you’re after if you’re looking for a more involved documentary on Ethiopian history or a globe spanning mystery.

Check our Pan African Film Festival 2021 page for more reviews coming out of the 29th edition of the festival.

103

Faya Dayi – A Khat Induced Trip Through Remote Ethiopia

Faya Dayi Film Difficulty Ranking: 4

Faya Dayi is a trip of an Ethiopian documentary. It’s a fully immersive sensory experience into the highlands of Harar, Ethiopia with the help of Khat. Whilst it isn’t easy to keep track of the narrative threads, you’ll remember the tangible feel of the film.

From: Ethiopia, Africa
Watch: Trailer, Letterboxd
Next: Malni, Mother, I Am Suffocating, Fausto

Faya Dayi – The Breakdown

You might not know what’s going on in Faya Dayi, but that doesn’t matter. As instead of telling an easy to follow story, Faya Dayi gives us a complete sensory experience built by the film’s look and sound.

The film centers on the historical town of Hara in Eastern Ethiopia. Once, Harar was the center of Islamic culture and religion in the Horn of Africa but now the town is remote, sitting 500km away from Ethiopia’s capital, at almost 2km high. However, it’s still famous for being the birthplace of Khat, a plant whose leaves act as a euphoric stimulant for the locals that have been chewing them for centuries.

Faya Dayi chooses to focus on the magical Khat plant, but documents it in a very unique way. One strand of the documentary has observational footage of the Khat supply chain, documenting the commercial cycle of the crop from harvest to sale. This part of the film is pretty conventional and real. However, it’s mixed with two more strands – one featuring a boy navigating his relationship with his Khat chewing father and his brother that has left for Europe, and another following the mythical story of Elias and the birth of Khat. Both of these narratives are more poetic. They’re where the film employs the full breadth of it’s unique Khat-inspired style, and substitutes a focus on realism for a tangible sensory experience. Instead of telling a reliable story with these two narratives, Faya Dayi gives you a trip in Harar.

The style is what makes this film. Firstly, it’s all shot in black and white. There isn’t much light in the film, with most of the scenes taking place at night, so the low black and white contrast gives the film a dreamy timelessness. The images of Harar could be from today, the future, or 100 years ago. In addition to the dreamy low contrast shots, the director also uses a high number of close ups – of hands working and Khat leaves – with a very narrow depth of field. These shots are like flashlight beams illuminating parts of the darkness. They provide a focus in an otherwise dreamy film-scape. These moments, alongside the crisp diegetic sounds – of rustling leaves and crackling fires – make it feel like you’re right there in the moment.

It’s on this level that Faya Dayi feels Khat imbued. The vague storylines are just part of the act. We’re experiencing the sensations of the magical plant through the screen in the film’s immersiveness. The style accentuates our senses, making us feel like we’re there, but dulls our understanding of the plot. Instead of a linear, easy to follow narrative, we’re given a handful of strands to grasp at, until we give up trying to follow them and surrender to the meditative, poetic style. Watch this film in a dark room with a good sound system or headphones and drift along with it.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for another dreamy music and sound driven documentary that transports you to another places, check out Malni – Towards the Ocean.

Or if you’re simply looking for a more slow cinema documentaries there’s Lemojang Jeremiah Mosese’s Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You. as well as the darkness of the Peruvian mines in El Dorado XXI.

Lastly, for more wonder filled storytelling, immerse yourself in the fleeting episodes of Andrea Bussmann’s Fausto.