In Jenna Cato Bass’s horror film, a Black family’s domestic servitude to a white family is the stuff of nightmares.
African Cinema
The Gravedigger’s Wife offers a touching slice of Somali life
The Gravedigger’s Wife follows a Somali gravedigger’s desperate search for funds to finance life-saving surgery for his wife. Read Orla Smith’s interview with the film’s director here In Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s first feature, The Gravedigger’s Wife, which premiered in Semaine de la Critique at Cannes, the great irony is that Guled (Omar Abdi) earns his […]
‘It was always about making you feel unsafe’: Oliver Hermanus on Moffie
South African auteur Oliver Hermanus on his 1981-set film, Moffie, about how the army indoctrinated conscripted boys with white supremacy and homophobia.
Ep. 82: Quo Vadis, Aida and Our Lady of the Nile: Genocide on film
Jasmila Žbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida is one of the best films of the year. On this episode, we discuss it in context of Atiq Rahimi’s Our Lady of the Nile, another film approaching the theme of genocide with tremendous empathy towards the human cost rather than being a spectacle of suffering.
Ep. 76: Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako and Timbuktu
On this episode we look at two of Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako’s films, the newly restored Bamako, and one of our favourite films of the 2010s, Timbuktu. We also discuss locating African cinema and challenges in distribution and preservation.
In Farewell Amor, Ekwa Msangi uses Angolan dance to explore family bonds
Ekwa Msangi discusses her debut feature, Farewell Amor, a triptych about an family of Angolan immigrants who reunite in New York City.