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21 UP SOUTH AFRICA
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Our Price: $24.95
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Inspired by Michael Apted's Up Series, this documentary from Academy Award Nominee Angus Gibson (Mandela) meets back up with the group of South African children first profiled in 1992 at 7 years of age. Now 21, this compelling film tracks how the lives of these black and white, rich and poor boys and girls have been shaped by the social and political upheavals that occurred in South Africa since the dismantling of apartheid. Tragically, AIDS has already claimed the lives of three of these children. Angus Gibson---South Africa---2006---70 mins.
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ABOUNA
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Our Price: $26.95
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Fifteen-year-old Tahir and his eight-year-old brother Amine attempt to adapt to life without their absent father, who has left their small village in Chad near the Cameroon border to find work. Poignant and beautifully shot, the film carefully follows the boys as they struggle to stay together and find hope while the realization that their father may never return sets in. In Chad Arabic with English subtitles. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun---Chad/France---2002---84 mins.
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ADANGGAMAN
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Our Price: $29.95
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Black Africans are capturing African tribesmen and trading them into European slavery in this historical drama set in the 17th century. Adanggaman, played by Rasmane Ouedraogo, is a native tyrant complicit in the trafficking of human cargo. When Ossei (Ziable Honore Goore Bi) is off on a secret tryst, his village is attacked by Adanggaman and his men, who take his mother hostage and murder the rest of his loved ones. Ossei's journey to rescue his mother will define or end his young adult life. "As fundamental, and haunted, as a combat scar" (Michael Atkinson, Village Voice). Director Roger Gnoan M'Bala uses native songs and rhythms to contrast the shocking images. In Bambara, Baoule and French with English subtitles. Roger Gnoan M'Bala---Ivory Coast/Switzerland---2000---85 mins.
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ADRIFT ON THE NILE
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Our Price: $29.99
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Based on the novel by Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz, Adrift on the Nile shows a group of hedonistic middle-aged friends who gather each night for dancing, sex, and drug-use. The film articulates a scathing indictment of the corruption, discontent, and despair of the Egyptian elite preceding the 1967 War. In Arabic with English subtitles.
Hussein Kamal---Egypt---1971---115 mins.
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AFRICAN LEADERS (AMILCAR CABRAL / FRANTZ FANON)
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Our Price: $29.95
In Stock
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Two profiles of African leaders who defied colonialism: Amilcar Cabral, who led the Liberation Movement, and Frantz Fanon, spokesman for the Algerian revolution.
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AFRICAN RITUAL & INITIATION
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Our Price: $34.95
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Dr. Malidoma Patrice Some explains that during his childhood among the Dagara people, ritual established a link with the worlds of ancestors and spirits. This shaman will lead you to other dimensions of reality. 60 mins.
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AL KARNAK
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Our Price: $29.99
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Co-writer Naguib Mahfouz (Miramar) adapted his own work, Al Karnak, for this serious drama about the lives of a group of university students during the tumultuous socio-political changes that affected Egypt in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nour El-Sherif and Soad Hosny star. In Arabic with English subtitles.
Aly Badrakhan---Egypt---1975---143 mins.
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ALI ZAOUA
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Our Price: $14.98
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A kind of Oliver Twist transplanted to modern Casablanca, Nabil Ayouch's North African drama follows a gang of homeless, glue-sniffing orphans who rely on their wits and petty thievery to survive. When the charismatic Ali (Abdelhak Zhayra) makes a break from the adult gang leader Dib (Said Taghamoui), many of his friends follow suit. But with Dib bent on revenge, Ali realizes he has nowhere to turn. "An engaging and powerful piece of work, with real compassion for Morocco's unnoticed, unlamented army of homeless children" (The Guardian). In Arabic with English subtitles. Nabil Ayouch---Morocco---2000---100 mins.
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AMANDLA!: REVOLUTION IN FOUR-P
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Our Price: $19.98
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The history of black South African music and its central role in the fight against apartheid is the focus of this rousing documentary. Filmmaker Lee Hirsch spent nine years compiling interviews and performance footage that reveal the spiritual dimension behind both the music and the struggle for freedom. Winner of the Documentary Audience Award and the Freedom of Expression Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. "One of the most emotionally charged musicals you're likely to see" (Andrew Lewis Conn, Time Lee Hirsch---South Africa/USA---2002---108 mins.
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ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU
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Our Price: $29.95
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One of the leading figures in South Africa's struggle for freedom, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has taken on an equally important role in healing the ravaging wounds of apartheid through his leadership on the country's Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Bill Moyers talks with the courageous, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Originally broadcast on PBS. 56 mins.
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ART STAR AND THE SUDANESE TWINS, THE
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Our Price: $24.95
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During a photo shoot of nude women in Sudan, conceptual artist Vanessa Beecroft became obsessed with adopting two orphaned babies despite the objection of her husband and Congolese authorities. The Art Star is Kiwi filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly's nonfiction account of Beecroft's trip back to Africa during a 16-month campaign to adopt the children. "Provocative result is not a straightforward artist's profile, political commentary or domestic drama, but a poetic fusion of the three" (Variety). Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at Sundance.
Pietra Brettkelly---New Zealand---2007---98 mins.
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BAB EL-OUED CITY
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Our Price: $29.95
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In a working class district of Algiers, shortly after the riots of 1988, a young bakery worker rips out a loudspeaker broadcasting the propaganda of an Islamic fundamentalist group. This act of frustration is taken as a provocation by the local extremist organization, which happens to be led by the brother of the bakery worker's lover. "The most lucid depiction on film of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria" (Deborah Young, Variety). Winner of the FIPRESCI international film critics' prize at Cannes. Merzak Allouache---Algeria/France/Germany/Switzerland---1994---93 mins.
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BAMAKO
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Our Price: $29.95
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"The most politically urgent film in the 2006 NY Film Festival combines a bracing indictment of the world financial system with a subtle glimpse at daily life in Africa" (A.O. Scott, The New York Times). Directed by Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (Waiting for Happiness), Bamako's experimental narrative veers between the story of a young nightclub singer (Aissa Maiga) and her boyfriend (Tiecoura Traore) on the verge of a break-up, and scenes of a court case against the IMF and World Ba nk being held in the courtyard of their apartment complex. In French and Bambara Abderrahmane Sissako---Mali/France/USA---2006---118 mins.
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BEAT THE DRUM
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Our Price: $19.95
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Opening on lush widescreen shots of South Africa's countryside, Beat the Drum is both literally and figuratively the story of a journey that takes place on two fronts: across the rural and urban divide and on the threshold of childhood and coming of age. When an unidentified illness strikes a village in the KwaZulu-Natal province, young Musa is left orphaned and forced to mobilize to the city of Johannesburg in search of his only known surviving relative, his uncle. In the gritty oil-tinged streets of Johannesburg, Musa falls in with a crowd of street urchins and takes on a number of odd-end jobs to save up enough money to bring home to his village, while also learning about HIV/AIDS. Winning over thirty awards at an array of international film festivals, including the Montreal World Film Festival, Beat the Drum is an important film and couldn't have arrived at a better time, when too much has been said and too little has been done for the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
David Hickson---South Africa/USA---2003---114 mins.
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BIRD CAN'T FLY, THE
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Our Price: $19.95
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Barbara Hershey stars in this South African-set melodrama about a woman who returns to the mining town she left over a decade before. She's there to attend her daughter's funeral, but arrives too late, and focuses on trying to help pick up what is left of the young woman's family. However, the broken widower (Tony Kgoroge) and misguided son (Yusuf Davids) want her nothing to do with Hershey. She is prepared to leave when a sandstorm changes her life, and that of the entire decrepit town. "...a surreal combination of symbolism, New Age-ism...and striking visuals" (Variety).
Threes Anna---South Africa---2007---89 mins.
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BLACK GIRL/ BOROM SARRET
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Our Price: $29.95
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Two films from "the greatest of all African filmmakers" (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment). Black Girl (1966, 60 mins.), Ousmane Sembene's first feature-length film, is a major statement against the lingering culture of colonialism. A Senegalese woman, working as a governess for a French family, finds her duties reduced to those of a maid after the family moves from Dakar to the south of France. In her new country, the woman is constantly made aware of her race and mistreated by her employers, causing her to fall into isolation and despair. Borom Sarret (1963, 20 mins.) follows a horse-cart driver in Dakar struggling through the day and witnessing the immense gulf between the poor and the bourgeoisie. "The most seminal work of African cinema" (Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia). Both films in Ousmane Sembene---Senegal---1963, 1966---80 mins.
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BOESMAN & LENA
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Our Price: $29.95
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Danny Glover and Angela Bassett star in this heart-wrenching adaptation of Athol Fugard's play about a couple's struggle to survive and not let hatred destroy them as they live a life of constant displacement and oppression under Apartheid. Through flashbacks we see the happiness they once had and how it was taken away from them. Glover "...finds every nuance of Boesman's pride and frustration as well as his deeply buried, nearly evaporated reservoir of tenderness. And Ms. Bassett stokes Lena's pain to such white heat that the screen fairly burns" (A.O. Scott, The New York Times). The last film directed by John Berry, who began his career in Hollywood (He Ran All the Way) but spent much of his career in France and elsewhere after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. In English. John Berry---France/South Africa---2000---84 mins.
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BOY CALLED TWIST
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Our Price: $19.99
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Director Tim Greene transplants Dickens' Oliver Twist to contemporary Cape Town in a superb South African coming-of-age story. Jarrid Geduld plays the sprightly hero, who escapes from a rural orphanage and travels to the city to fall in with an unruly gang of urchins. By capturing the harsh realities of a socially stratified city, Greene effectively breathes new life into a timeless, powerful tale. "Shows admirable pluck, due to its star's nigh-on criminal kid charisma" (Village Voice). Tim Greene---South Africa---2004---115 mins.
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BRIDE MARKET OF IMILCHIL
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Our Price: $24.99
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This film captures a unique Moroccan marriage ritual that occurs for three days each September. The event has even become a tourist attraction and the presence of Western observers--including the filmmakers--is questioned as the documentary addresses the divide between Arabic and Western culture. In English and Arabic with English subtitles. Steffen Pierce/Christian Pierce---Morocco/USA---1988---58 mins.
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CAIRO AS SEEN BY CHAHINE- PP
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Our Price: $125.00
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The director of such masterpieces as Alexandria...Why? and Destiny transforms a study of the city of Cairo into a unique self-portrait. This concise work, made for television, is a brilliant artistic digression that an y Chahine admirer must see. In Arabic with English subtitles. Youssef Chahine---Egypt---1991---24 mins.
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