The impotence of the political bourgeoisie
Ousmane Sembene’s “Xala” (1974) is a powerful political narrative. At times edging toward the surreal, at others an acute depiction of the complexity of the freshly independent Senegal.
38 Articles by:
Basia Cummings
Basia Cummings is a writer and film critic based in London.
The talented Tajdin sisters
They’re making a film about “a love story set in Cape Town South Africa that chronicles the life of Leila, a young Cape Malay girl who falls in love with an American boy, Derek, who happens to be black.”
The Price of Leadership
A new series of documentaries explore the politics of leadership via an imaginative, malleable, deeply personal treatment of history.
Fabrice Muamba and English football
It’s a shame that a player had to suffer from a heart attack to provoke feelings of belonging about him as a refugee and immigrant. It says something about Britain.
A visual history of African LGBTQ
A quick review of films showing at two festivals with a focus on gay people: The Out in Africa Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
Out in Africa
Writing gays and lesbians into the political and social history of South Africa – a history from which LGBT people are so often obscured and ignored.
Witchcraft and the British Media
Can a belief be condemned as immoral? Or must we accept cultural difference, and merely condemn the acts that follow as a consequence?
Dabbling in the sublime
The 2012 edition of the Berlinale includes a number of films from Africa or with African themes.
Film and Johannesburg’s Ponte City
The German writer Norman Ohler described Johannesburg's Ponte City, Africa's tallest residential building, thus: "Ponte sums
The Truth and Reconciliation Film
On the screen, South Africa’s TRC has invariably been sensationalized into a showcase of trauma-as-entertainment.
The fragmentary character of memory
John Akomfrah’s ‘The Nine Muses’ obliquely tells the history of migration to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.
Nelson Mandela (Hollywood; plural)
Rumours are circulating on various Hollywood gossip and film blogs that Stringer Bell also known as
The confused lens of memory and trauma
The Rwandan film, “Grey Matter,” is part of prestigious traveling film exhibition, the Global Film Initiative.
Nollywood and Hollywood
A Nollywood director has reached the dizzying heights of Hollywood, and all the famous names that come with it. What can happen?
A photograph cannot give you concrete information
Despite her reluctance, Zarina Bhimji’s work does engage with her personal history of Indians’ expulsion from Uganda.
The Top 10 African films of 2011
2011 was a good year for African cinema. In various cinema seats and at home, I’ve