The Revolution Won’t Be Televised is Rama Thiaw’s (born in Mauritania, grew up between Senegal and France) second long-feature film. She documents one year in the life of Thiat and Kilifeu, members of the Senegalese Keur Gui band who went on to organize the ‘Y’en a Marre’ movement. This will probably not be the last documentary on the collective:

http://vimeo.com/58118187

(Related: ‘Y’en a Marre’ doesn’t have an English Wikipedia entry, so Ethan Zuckerman created one.)

Further South, Cape Town Hip-Hop (is it a movement?) gets portrayed in Die Hip in Kaapse Hop (“The Hip in Cape Hop”), featuring familiar and less familiar artists such as Dplanet, Rattex –that’s his tune “Welcome to Khayelitsha” in the trailer below–, Emile YX, Codax, Brazuka, graffiti artist Falko, Shameela ShamRock, Driemanskap, Ready D, Rezzano, Azuhl, and Bliksemstraal. Produced by MCL Pictures and LS Design Lab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt-eYeoVvrA

On December 17, 1962, Mamadou Dia, President of the Senegalese Council of Ministers, was arrested and given a life sentence, accused of organizing a coup d’état by his friend and companion Leopold Sedar Senghor. He would be imprisoned with four of his closest ministers. Among them, Joseph Mbaye, Minister of Rural Economy, uncle of Ousmane William Mbaye, who made a documentary about what happened in the run-up to that day:

Les Rêves Meurtris (“Shattered dreams”) is a short film by Hady Diawara, dedicated to Yaguine Koïta and Fodé Tounkara, the two young men from Guinée-Conakry who froze to death as stowaways on a flight to Belgium back in 1999:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFlOS7aL4u0

Une Si Belle Inquiétude (“Such a beautiful restlessness”) is a 12-minutes short by Brahim Fritah, in which he looks back on his travelings between France and Morocco through the use of some of the (archival) photos made along the way:

Bonus: you can watch the film in full over at French news website Mediapart.

Further Reading

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.