Portal:African cinema

African Film and Television Portal

13th ed. | Updated biweekly | October 28 - November 10, 2024

Featured Biography

Kyle Shepherd (born 8 July 1987 in Cape Town) is a South African jazz film and theater composer and pianist. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA (University of South Africa) piano competition winner in the Jazz category in 2015.

His television credits include the Netflix South African hit drama series, Unseen, Blood and Water, and Savage Beauty.

His film credits include the South African films Noem My Skollie (Call Me Thief), South Africa's official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards; Fiela se Kind (2019) winner of Best Score at the 2020 Silwerskerm Film Festival—one of world's only Afrikaans film festivals; Barakat (2020), South Africa's official entry to the 2022 Academy Awards and giving Shepherd his second Silwerskerm award for Best Score (2022); Vlugtig (2021) and Indemnity (2021). His most recent film score was for the comedy caper The Umbrella Men (2022), awarded Best Film at London's Film Africa Fest.

Shepherd is also the co-creator of the hit Afrikaans musical television show, Koortjies with Cape Town jazz and gospel music star Jonathan Rubain.

Of his process of composing for film:

"I try to learn the heart of the story. Sometimes, I don't need the full details. I don't always read the script. And then I just write music without any information. I write in open form. Usually, I come up with five or 10 pieces. And somewhere in between that, we find the main theme. Once you have your theme, you can really blast out from there. It's also nice to write music that's not restricted by the scene or edit."

Featured Industry Article

AREWA24 is a Nigerian satellite television channel that showcases the lifestyle of the Northern Region, Nigeria. It is the first free-to-air channel to air Hausa language-programming and the leading and consistently highest-rated Hausa language entertainment and lifestyle television network in Nigeria and West Africa.

Its fictional entertainment frequently addresses social issues such as girl education, corruption, health challenges, interreligious violence, youth employment and conservation.

One of its current hits is the comedy drama Gidan Badamasi, a series that has sparked debate about having too many children and starring Kannywood stars Hadiza Gabon, Adam A Zango, and Falau A Dorayi. Other popular programs include Buka Afrikana, a comedy set in a local Nigerian Middle Belt diner, called a “buka”; Labarina, and Sirrin Boye, a new Hausa mystery and crime drama.

Its first Hausa language series was Dadin Kowa, now in its 25th season, named after and about a fictional town, with storylines reflecting everyday issues impacting Northern Nigerians. Dadin Kowa won the 2016 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award for best Hausa movie/television series

Notable This Month

The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) returns for its 13th edition 3-8 November 2024 in Lagos, Nigeria. Headless, a thriller by Michael Ndiomu, starring Gideon Okeke, Uzoamaka Anuinoh and Baaj Adebule that unfolds at the nexus of politics, crime and Nollywood, will open the festival while Obi Emelonye’s latest film, Out of Breath, will close out the festival. The Igbo-language epic film received nine 2024 Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) nominations.

The 18th South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) took place October 25th and 26th. Shaka iLembe, the 2023 TV series retelling of the Shaka, the iconic Zulu King, picked up 12 awards, including for Best TV drama, the most of any nominee. Netflix's Yoh!, Christmas, a romantic comedy, and Outlaws, South Africa's first contemporary western series, both won eight Golden Horns each.

The seventh edition of the El Gouna Film Festival takes place October 24 to November 1 in the Red Sea Egyptian resort town. More than 80 features and shorts from over 30 countries will screen. Among the feature films in competition include Meryam Joobeur’s Who Do I Belong To, a Tunisian drama; Nabil Ayouch’s musical drama, Everybody Loves Touda, which premiered at Cannes; and Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s The Brink Of Dreams, which won the Golden Eye Award for best documentary at Cannes’ Critics’ Week.

Algeria celebrates Revolution Day on 1st of November, marking the start of the Algerian Revolution and the armed fight for independence from France in 1954. Watch Outside the Law a 2010 film directed by Rachid Bouchareb. The story takes place between 1945 and 1962, and focuses on the lives of three Algerian brothers in France, set against the backdrop of the Algerian independence movement and the Algerian War. The film represented Algeria at the 83rd Academy Awards, where it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

Featured Film

Softie is a 2020 Kenyan documentary about political activist and photojournalist Boniface Mwangi who first came to prominence through his photographs documenting the post-election violence of the 2007 elections. Most recently Mwangi made international headlines after being arrested and detained overnight on October 27, 2024, by Kenyan police, after calling for an anti-government protest in Nairobi. Softie, which chronicles 5 years of his life leading up to his run for a local seat in the 2017 elections, is a portrait of Mwangi the activist, but also about Kenyan politics, family, and identity.

The first feature film of director Sam Soko, Softie won several awards including a Special Jury Prize for Editing at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and Best Documentary at the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) 2020, an award that automatically qualified the film for consideration for the Oscar documentary shortlist for the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony.

Soko said of Softie:

"This film has to be for Kenyans, for that person that actually wakes up at 5am and goes to vote. That person has to see themselves."

Did You Know?

Hijack '93, a Nollywood Netflix film that drops on October 25, is a fictional retelling of the real-life hijacking of a Nigerian Airways flight in 1993 by a group of Nigerian teenagers. The film’s lineup of Nollywood actors includes Bob Manuel, John Dumelo, Sharon Ooja, Nancy Isime, Jemima Osunde, and Efa Iwara,

Maïmouna Doucouré spent nearly 18 months researching studies on how children are exposed to adult content and sexualised images on social media for Cuties, her award-winning 2020 feature directorial debut. The story centers on a Senegalese-French girl with a traditional Muslim upbringing who is caught between her family’s traditional values and contemporary western culture when she joins a twerking dance group.

The short comedy drama, Made In Mauritius (2009), was the first ever Mauritian film to be selected as part of Official Selection at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Directed by Mauritian director David Constantin, the 7-minute film can be watched for free on Viddsee.

Salah Abu Seif (May 10, 1915 – June 23, 1996) was one of the most famous Egyptian film directors, and is considered to be the godfather of Neorealist cinema in Egyptian cinema. Many of the 41 films he directed are considered Egyptian classics; eight of them rank in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s list of 100 Greatest Egyptian Films, the most of any director.

Barakat (2020), a South African family drama film directed by Amy Jephta is the first Afrikaans-language Muslim feature film produced in South Africa. The story centers around the family drama that ensues when an aging, widowed matriarch, brings together her fractured, dysfunctional family over Eid-al-Fitr in order to introduce her new romantic partner. The film received multiple nominations and awards and was South Africa's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.

Birthdays

Isaac Nabwana (born. Nov 6, 1973), popularly known as Nabwana I.G.G., is a Ugandan film director, cinematographer, writer and producer.He is the founder of the film studio Wakaliwood, known for producing popular ultra-low budget action comedy films. He has been referred to as Uganda's Quentin Tarantino due to his use of over-the-top violence. Nabwana first started to gain wide international attention after uploading a trailer of Who Killed Captain Alex? on YouTube in 2010 followed by the entire film in 2015. The film has gained a cult status and has over 9.8 million views on YouTube.

Niyi Akinmolayan (born November 3, 1982) is a Nigerian filmmaker and director known for his work in both blockbuster and independent films. He is also the founder of Anthill Studios, a media production facility. He directed The Wedding Party 2 (2017) Chief Daddy (2018), Prophetess (2021), My Village People (2021), and The Set Up (2019), all among the highest-grossing Nigerian films of all time. His most recent film, Lisabi: The Uprising, is a 2024 Nigerian historical drama that was released on Netflix in September.

Thandiwe Newton (born 6 November 1972) is an award-winning British actress of Zimbabwean descent. Mostly known for her Hollywood roles in films and TV series such as Crash, Star Wars, ER and Westworld, Newton’s African filmography includes Half of a Yellow Sun, a 2013 Anglo-Nigerian drama film directed by Biyi Bandele and based on the novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She also was an executive producer of the animated-live action documentary film Liyana, which tells the story of five orphaned children in Swaziland who create an original tale about a girl named Liyana.

Oulaya Amamra (born 12 November 1996) is a French-Moroccan actress who first came to prominence in the 2016 films Divines and Tamara. She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress and the Lumières Award for Best Female Revelation for Divines, a coming of age story directed by her older sister Houda Benyamina and which won Beynamina the Caméra d'O at Cannes. Among her most recent roles is in her sister's sophomore film, Toutes pour une (All for One) (2025) in which Amamra teams up again with her Divines co-star Déborah Lukumuena, to play one of three musketeers disguised as men in 1625 France.

Syndy Emade (born 21 November 1993) is a Cameroonian actress and producer. She made her acting debut in 2010 in the film Obsession by Achille Brice and in 2015 founded BLUE RAIN Entertainment, a production company whose film credits include the 2017 romantic comedy A Man For The Weekend featuring Nollywood star Alexx Ekubo, and one of the first Cameroonian films to stream on Netflix. Most recently she starred in the 2024 film When Wolves Cry, a pan-African advocacy drama on the perils of “fake news” that filmmed in Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo and Benin starring Francis Duru, Steve Eboh, Sydney Diala, Happy Julian, and Alex Nwankwa.

Quote

Danai Gurira in 2022
“Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for changing perception of Africa and allowing a complex, rich self exploration of its history and unique culture. Its boundless possibilities to give Africa it’s own voice is what brought me to writing and acting."

Danai Gurira, Actress, Playwright, Activist, and Artistic Director of Almasi Collaborative Arts

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Featured Film Score

Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, also known as Living in Bondage II, is a 2019 Nigerian supernatural thriller directed by Ramsey Nouah. A sequel to the 1992 cult classic Living in Bondage, the film was a blockbuster that broke several box office records upon its release. Today it ranks 22 overall on the list of highest-grossing Nigerian films of all time.

In 2020 it received 30 combined nominations from the Africa Movie Academy Awards, Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA), and Best of Nollywood Awards, and won 13 awards. These included three nominations for Best Soundtrack, taking home the award at the AMVCA.

The soundtrack is a 12-track produced by Larry Gaaga showcasing some of Nigeria’s A-list Afrobeats artists, such as Davido “Work (Living in Bondage)”, Flavour, 2 Face Idibia, Waje, Duncan Mighty, Phyno, Olamide Iyanya, Reekado Banks, Omawunmi, and Patoranking.

Featured Page to Screen

Love Unto Grave (Amharic: ፍቅር እስከ መቃብር; Fikir Eske Mekabir) (2024) is an Ethiopian television drama series directed and co-written by Sewmehon Yismaw based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Haddis Alemayehu.

Love Unto Grave is one of the best known novels in Ethiopia and is considered a classic of Ethiopian literature. The novel gained popularity largely due to its narration on Ethiopian radio during the Derg regime. The story revolves around the doomed love affair between Bezabeh, a nobleman, and Seble, a young woman of a lower social class. The novel also takes aim at the injunctions of the Church, class prejudices and the hardships and inequities faced by the peasantry.

The first of four commissioned seasons, each consisting of 12 episodes, began airing on September 11, 2024, to coincide with the Ethiopian New Year celebrations.

In preparation of filming the director said:

"We are trying to understand the book before executing it; there are more than 70 studies done on Fikir Eske Mekabir, and we are trying to read and understand each perspective. We want to know how people perceive it, and in the end, we want to go out with our own voice. It needs dedication and confidence."