WATCH THE WORLD

Our goal is to open up the world to everyone through film. Everyone should travel if they can (the world is amazing), but it costs time and money which we don't always have. That's where FilmRoot comes in. We bring the world of films to your couch, so you can travel wherever you want to without the flight fees.

Use our World Map to find the best films from each country, choose a continent below to explore the best films from each continent, or simply scroll down to see our latest posts featuring films from around the world. Or, if you're up for a challenge, work your way up to the top of our Film Difficulty Rankings to become a World Film expert.

Latest Posts

Gonarezhou: The Movie – Pan African Film Festival 2020

Gonarezhou: The Movie is a rags to riches crime story of one man rising from poverty into one of the most wanted poachers in Zimbabwe. It’s a valiant effort on a small budget (approximately $12,000) but is let down by clichés and unconvincing characters.

The film starts with an impressive panoramic shot of a group of soldiers aiming their assault rifles at a man running across the dried banks of a river with a wall of red cliffs on the other side of the river. In the next scene, the same man is strapped up to an IV in a hospital bed. His nurse turns off the radio when the host starts talking about illegal poaching – obviously a sore subject – but the man asks her to put it back on. As soon as the radio host asks for people to share their opinions about the poaching business, our bed-bound man calls in and offers to tell his story. But the radio host is having none of it, telling him to talk to his producers or write a letter… that is until the man reveals that he is Zulu.

From this point the film flashes back to tell Zulu’s story from living in poverty to becoming one of the country’s leading poachers. It’s a story with a lot of unfortunate clichés: Zulu’s mum dies leaving him alone, he’s a struggling artist that gives up on his dreams, a chance meeting sets him up with a crime lord who offers to save him from the gutter, and he falls in love with a prostitute. Ultimately, Zulu joins the group of poachers because he wants to get to know the attractive prostitute he meets and slowly works himself up to being one of the country’s most wanted men.

However, Zulu’s rise to becoming one of the country’s most wanted men never feels convincing. Zulu is obviously not a criminal by nature as he appears meek and timid, mostly preferring to look at the ground rather than the eyes of whoever is talking to him. It feels more like Zulu walks into poaching because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t appear to be in it for the money as he never flaunts or talks about his new found wealth. It’s also hard to believe he poaches for the prostitute as he never looks excited, anxious, or sad when he is with or without her. Because he still looks poor, doesn’t hold any power, and doesn’t have any motivation it’s hard to understand why he poaches and why he’s seen as so dangerous.

The film could have done with a bit more build up. There aren’t any signs of a police investigation for Zulu or his colleagues and therefore it doesn’t feel like there’s any threat of Zulu being caught. In the end, the police stumble onto his tracks by chance and a cheap twist is used to try and create a tension which hasn’t been built up beforehand. If there had been signs of an investigation and signs that Zulu was a wanted man, it might have raised the stakes for the finale.

Gonarezhou: The Movie deserves credit for making a movie about illegal poaching and human trafficking: two topics that rarely make the big screen. However, unfortunately the film feels a bit flat because the stakes never feel high enough to keep you on the edge of your seats for the film. Partly because we already know half the ending from the opening (he lives), but more so because Zulu is never seen as a wanted man until the finale, leaving no time to build up tension.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

Bigman Wahala – Pan African Film Festival 2020

Bigman Wahala is an enjoyable road-trip comedy with commercial appeal that focuses on the unlikely relationship between a poor taxi driver and a wanted former government official on the run. It never takes itself too seriously and even gets away with poking a bit of fun at both the ‘Bigman’ and military governments as well as the gullibility of the public.

Bigman Wahala starts with Honest, our friendly taxi driver, stuck in a traffic jam in Accra. The frantic John Woo style cutting rapidly builds pressure until Honest spots a gap in the traffic and races on home. It’s a sign that this road-trip comedy will be filled a few bursts of tense energy to propel it forward.

The next comes when an armed jeep full of soldiers carrying assault rifles descends on the Government building to stage a successful coup d’état. Like the opening traffic scene, the attack is full of fast cuts that cross the usual 180 boundaries of Hollywood cutting which makes it appear very chaotic. However, the insurgents win a quick victory that seems a bit too easy – perhaps a satirical jab at how many coups there have been in Western Africa over the last years. It’s presented as something a bit too familiar. Nevertheless, the insurgents quickly assume control of the airwaves and order all former government officials to report to their nearest police station. This is when we start following ‘Bigman’ Joseph, the former minister of the health department and follow his attempt to escape the country.

Our Bigman is comically selfish. As soon as he hears the news, he leaves his wife to collect his huge stash of money from the safe in his office. Whilst he’s there, some insurgents arrive to look for him, so he escapes through the back entrance and jumps into the nearest taxi, which just so happens to be driven by Honest. This kicks off a light buddy road trip movie between Bigman Joseph and Honest, as Honest helps Bigman to escape the country on lockdown.

Whilst the ending undermines the class boundaries which define the rest of the film in its’ we’re all human message, Bigman Wahala for the most part is a fun road trip comedy built on the classic Fish Out of Water and How the Mighty Have Fallen tropes.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

Verde – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

If you’re looking for transcendental film from Dominican Republic, the ritualized pacing of Verde carries the fire lit by Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ Cocote.

Verde is the first feature film set in Dajabon, a small region in the Northwest of Dominican Republic that borders Haiti. Like Cocote, the setting contains the streams, forests, and grassland that color the interior of the country instead of the pristine beaches and resorts you’d find in tourist brochures. It’s an open environment, a long way from sweltering urban Santo Domingo situated on the opposite side of the country. Here, the outside blends with the inside as the heat and sounds permeate through the walls and open doors of everyone’s houses. Because of Dajabon’s distance from the cities, there aren’t any signs of government of authority. Spiritual leaders and gangsters have taken their place as indigenous customs hold a similar power to the church and the gangs’ tit-for-tat retribution rules.

This has consequences for the three protagonists who’s attempted heist of a gold mine goes wrong. They don’t go to the police to hand themselves in, as there are no signs of the police here. Instead, they have to answer for their actions with the locals. They also don’t go to the church to ask for forgiveness, instead choosing to visit a shaman for a ritual to cleanse their sins. However, as their silence reveals, they already know the fate waiting for them.

Their march towards their inevitable deaths, payment for the man they killed during their attempted robbery, is reflected in the slow tempo of the film and their silence. Every shot, as common in transcendental cinema, lingers for longer than it needs to, forcing you to observe the characters for longer. With more time, Carmelo’s silence becomes more obvious and his actions appear more deliberate. He has the most screen time but does the least with it. His silence appears to honor the dead and repent for the crime he committed. His actions also appear willed by a feeling of guilt. However, he doesn’t appear to be in control, as if he has already given up his body to someone else. It gives the sense that he has already embraced his ultimate fate and is mourning for himself as well as the others.

In this way, Verde fits closest to Schrader’s meditative segment of transcendental film. It’s not simply observing the characters like a surveillance camera, and it’s not focusing solely on the look of the film. Instead Verde employs its slow tempo to hold viewers in a trance like state through the chapters of the film. We follow Carmelo’s repentant march through Dajabon and in it we are given time to reflect on our own lives as we move with him closer to our fate.

Verde is an impressive debut feature that you should look out for at a festival near you.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret – PAFF 2020

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret takes us back to Jaki’s childhood living in a coastal African town with his Granma, family, and friends. There’s no sign of school or any other schedule filling activities for young Jaki, so he creates his own entertainment with his friends Pi and Charlita. They start investigating the construction site of a huge mausoleum guarded by Russian soviets. Their innocent adventures uncover the Russian’s plot to demolish their neighborhood, so they plan to foil it by setting off their secret explosives.

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret revolves around Jaki’s childhood in the 1980s. The characters give the film (and award winning African novel by Ondjaki) its flavor. There’s Jaki and his two friends, a trio of innocent adventurers that Americans will recognize from many 1980s U.S. films such as The Goonies or E.T. There’s a loving Granma that never loses her spirit even when her toe is covered in gangrene. You’ll also meet two foreigners fighting for her company in a Portuguese speaking Russian and a Spanish speaking Cuban doctor. None of the characters are threatening or unfriendly, even ‘Sea Foam’, the only homeless man in the film is friendly and happy. It creates the kind of neighborhood you wished you grew in.

The film is also told in flash back, of an older Jaki reminiscing on his childhood. This flash back narrative adds to films saudade, a classic feeling in Portuguese language novels and films which describes feelings of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia for an object that you’ll probably never have again. In this case, it’s Jaki’s saudade for his happy and innocent childhood. The director emphasizes his good memories by coloring the memories of his childhood town in warm pastel colors and filling the story with only happy memories. Eradicating the greys and downplaying the threat of the Soviet construction work and the absence of Jaki’s parents keeps the story positive in a way that only a person looking back on their life with saudade could.

Whilst I haven’t read Ondjaki’s novel, João Ribeiro’s adaptation is a heart warming coming of age story told through the rose tinted lenses of Jaki looking back on his childhood.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

Ekoua – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

Ekoua is an ambitious animated dystopian film from Cote d’Ivoire featuring a Hero’s Journey story which unfortunately loses itself in exposition.

Visually, the 3D animation looks like it’s still in the development stage. Many animated objects are incomplete or forgotten about, such as a waiter carrying a tray with her arms by her side. More objects unnaturally cross spatial boundaries, such as a the baby’s legs blending into the crib it’s lying in when they move.

There’s also an unnecessary amount of shots in which characters are traveling from A to B either by walking or in cars. These shots are usually lengthened either side of the shot to show characters frozen still before and after they’ve started traveling. It adds time to a film which doesn’t need it. It reminded me of watching someone play a long game of Sims.

You could fault the criticisms above on a lack of funding or animated capabilities. Animated African films are rare compared to the number of animated films produced in North America and Asia. Ekoua is an ambitious attempt at creating a new dystopian world through animation. However, even with the limited animation capabilities, a complex storyline makes Ekoua hard to love.

At the start of the film, Ekoua sets itself up as a potential satire by introducing a dystopian world ruled by scammers. However, the scammer dystopia set up in the opening is never explained. The only scammers we see are two brightly dressed men that make it rain in clubs, and suspiciously keep following Ekoua for no apparent reason. Instead of exploring the scammer dystopia, Ekoua alters direction to follow a narrative of Ekoua becoming a ‘seer’ and eliminating an evil baby.

From there the film felt like a slow crazy dream. Here’s an outline of a portion of the plot I understood:

Ekoua becomes a seer thanks to an elder.
She has a vision that informs her that her neighbors newborn baby is an evil spirit reincarnated and that she must eliminate it to avoid repeating the same mistakes her mum made.
Scammers chase Ekoua and beat her up.
Ekoua takes the evil baby.
Royal police show up and guide Ekoua to the capital with the evil baby.
A band of mutated hyenas led by a mutant elephant named Koffi stop them and steal the baby.
Ekoua tracks the band of mutants to their hideout and recovers the baby.
Ekoua and the royal policeman move on to the capital.

Then the plot gets confusing.

Overall, Ekoua could do with a bit more simplicity. The story has a lot of different strands (scammer world, Ekoua’s mum, visions, hero’s journey) that make it hard to follow. With a more focused script and more budget to improve the animation, Ekoua would instantly improve.