5 New Films to Watch Out For, N°29

Nègre Blanc (“White Negro”) is Cheikh N’diaye’s new film about albinism, in which he tackles rumors, stereotypes and misconceptions through the eyes of Cameroonian storyteller Léonard de Semnjock:

Sans Image (“Without Image”) is a French documentary film by Fanny Douarche and Franck Rosier about three sans-papiers from Mali (Matenin, Gaye and Abdoulaye) who work on a theatre piece that reflects their daily hustles as workers “without papers” in France:

Pokou, Princesse Ashanti is marketed as the first animated film coming out of Côte d’Ivoire — produced by Afrikatoon:

Christian Lajoumard’s documentary In the Courtyard of the Puppeteers of Burkina Faso is part of a mini-series about puppets from around the world. In Burkina Faso, a number of young puppeteers have revived this dying art, and today about twenty troops flourish in the country. These small enterprises with limited means usually set up shop in the courtyards of family homes:

La Rive Noire (“The Black River”) is a documentary by Blaise Ndjehoya (Cameroon) and Olivier Van’L — after historian Michel Fabre’s book by the same title — about the Transatlantic links (from Harlem to Paris) between African-American and African-French thinkers and artists at the beginning of the 20th century. Names and interviews include those of Aimé Césaire, Howard Dodson, Lilyan Kesteloot, Daniel Maximin, Gordon Parks, Herbert Gentry and Manuel Zapata Olivella:

Further Reading

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.