Summary: This documentary tells the story of 120 000 South African black soldiers who volunteered to serve in the Second World War on the side of the British.

Summary: A memory transplant for an imaginary trip to Mars goes wrong and another personality surfaces. When his old self returns, his friends seem to have orders to kill him.

Summary: This film poem rhythmically combines the reminiscences of a dying man with memories during World War II, recollections of a divorce in the family and newsreel footage.

Summary: The film follows a cart driver through Dakar as he scrapes together a living. The cart driver’s reflections are offered as voice over while the different people he meets en route.

Summary: This debut feature is a cautionary tale on the personal struggle to find moral balance between upholding indigenous customs and embracing progressive ideals.

Summary: About the 25-year evolution of hip hop in South Africa, from its birth through the insurgence of black consciousness and the political uprising in the 1980s in the face of Apartheid.

Summary: The film confines itself to the relationship between an actress who has refused to speak after having a breakdown and the nurse who is assigned to take care of her.

Summary: We meet Jeff Gerber who has a wife, two kids, a nice home and shows himself to be racist and a male chauvinist, wakes up in the middle of the night as a black man.

Summary: The film provides an unsparing view of village life and traditions while capturing the fateful constrictions brought about by custom.

Summary: Billy Pilgrim lives simultaneously in his past as an American POW, in the future as a resident of a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore, and in the present as an optometrist.

Summary: Multi media artist Delphine Kreutzer has here crafted a bracing topsy turvey camcorder portrait of our contemporary media/net saturated existence with no holds barred.

Summary: Common law is not recognized in Congolese law, but the population adheres to the procedures that are governed by rituals and passed on from one generation to the next.

Summary: In a gloomy future world, young people are addicted to an illegal and deadly battle simulation game called Avalon.

Summary: One of the first Ugandan features, this film is about young Nabakaabya, who falls victim to the common taboo in Ugandan families to talk to children about issues of sexuality.

Summary: In1977, the Japanese school girl Megumi disappeared off the face of the earth as if by magic. Thirty years later, the family and the acquaintances of the girl are still stunned.

Summary: Cheryl is young, black, and lesbian and consumed by a film project on her search for a black actress who appeared in 1930s films and was known as the Watermelon Woman.

Summary: Entirely shot with a PD150 camcorder while working without a script this experimental film is about an actress who realizes her life is a mimicry of the film they're shooting.

Summary: Romero’s penchant for outlandish satire: Urbanites hole up in a deserted shopping mall and discover that the dead surely delight in doing what they did most while alive: go shopping! Can they hold out, not only against the dead but against their own delirium?

Description: South African filmmaker Vincent Moloi is part of a new breed of documentary films in South Africa exploring new styles in his medium. In the festival he will be presenting three of his films, Men of Gold, Night Sweepers and A Pair of Boots and a Bicycle. In this master class Vincent Moloi will discuss his unique approach to filmmaking and talk about his experience in making his films in South Africa.

Summary: At night and on weekends, four men in a suburban garage have built a cottage industry of error-checking devices when they stumble on something beyond imagination.

Summary: A layered film which chronicles the lives of three generations of one family: a soldier from the Second World War, a sportsman and a taxidermist.

Summary: A tragic drama concerning a very poor man who marries a wealthy woman and the ensuing disharmony that is generated by mutual misunderstandings.

Summary: A simple story of a country lad who comes to the city to look for work, takes some knocks adjusting to city life, but comes out on top when his singing talent is discovered.

Description: Master filmmaker Gadalla Gubara is the first filmmaker of East Africa, having made his first film in the late forties with the colonial film unit on 35mm film. However, he is largely unknown and unaccounted for in the history of African film precisely because of the solitary determination of his pursuit as much as the lack of credible cultural support throughout the Eastern sector of Africa. Gubara will discuss his own work in relationship to his life in the cinema as well as the cinema of Sudan. He will also provide a unique vantage point from which to observe the developments of half a century.

Summary: This film looks at the history of the East African coast, tracing events from ancient times through the arrival of the first Arab settlers in the 8th century to contemporary global impact.

Summary:

1. Femke and Ilse Van Velzen, Fighting the Silence (The Netherlands, 2007, 53 min)

During Congo’s 7 year war, 80.000 women were raped. The story of women and men to change their society that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists.

2. Daniel Junge, Iron Ladies of Liberia (USA, 2007, 77 min.)

This film follows Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female president in Africa in her first year in office and the daunting tasks she faces in war torn Liberia.

Summary:

1. Ousmane Sembene, Mandabi (The Money Order) (Senegal, 1968, 90 min)

A poor Senegalese Muslim who, upon trying to cash a money-order at his village post office, somehow finds himself pitted against bureaucratic and societal forces.

2. Ousmane Sembene, Xala (Senegal, 1973, 128 min)

It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed.

Summary:

1. Roger Gnoan M’Bala, In the Name of Christ (1993, Ivory Coast, 82 min.)

In a small Ivorian village lives a much-despised little swineherd. One day, after one drink too many, a childlike God comes to him in a vision and elects him to save his people.

2. Franco Sacchi, This is Nollywood (U.S.A., 2007, 53 min)

This film tells the story of the Nigerian film industry—a revolution enabling Africans with few resources to tell African stories to African audiences.

Summary:

1. Raquel Cepeda, Bling! a Planet Rock (US/Sierra Leone, 2007, 87 min.)

This film takes a look at how the flashy world of commercial hip-hop played a significant role in the 10-year civil war in Sierra Leone.

2. David Lachapelle, Rize (U.S.A., 2005, 86 min.)

Rize reveals a dance phenomenon born from oppression in US ghettos which modernizes moves unique to African tribal rituals with athletic movement sped up to impossible speeds.

Summary:

1. Fadika Kramo-Laancine, Djeli (Ivory Coast, 1981, 92 min)

Two Ivorian students are in love and talking about marriage. Despite their fast-changing world, the two families oppose the marriage of their children in the name of tradition.

2. Adama Drabo, Taafe Fanga (Skirt Power) (Mali, 1997, 103 min.)

One of the Dogon legends told in the form of a comedy discusses the subject of women in a changing society through the story of the women’s uprising on the rocks of Bandiagara.

Summary:

1. Raquel Cepeda, Bling! a Planet Rock (US/Sierra Leone, 2007, 87 min.)

This film takes a look at how the flashy world of commercial hip-hop played a significant role in the 10-year civil war in Sierra Leone.

2. David Lachapelle, Rize (U.S.A., 2005, 86 min.)

Rize reveals a dance phenomenon born from oppression in US ghettos which modernizes moves unique to African tribal rituals with athletic movement sped up to impossible speeds.

Summary:

1. Kyle O’Donoghue, Brass Boys (South-Africa, 2007, 42 min.)

The Young Brass Sounds was founded in 2005 to cheer on the Ajax Cape Town team. The band keeps the kids off the street and away from gang related violence.

2. Robert Zemeckis and Richard Williams, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (USA, 1988, 120 min.)

Here animated characters are real beings who live and work alongside humans in the real world, most of them as actors in animated cartoons.

Summary:

1. Fadika Kramo-Laancine, Djeli (Ivory Coast, 1981, 92 min)

Two Ivorian students are in love and talking about marriage. Despite their fast-changing world, the two families oppose the marriage of their children in the name of tradition.

2. Adama Drabo, Taafe Fanga (Skirt Power) (Mali, 1997, 103 min.)

One of the Dogon legends told in the form of a comedy discusses the subject of women in a changing society through the story of the women’s uprising on the rocks of Bandiagara.

Summary: Tajoog is the beautiful cousin of a young tribal man who is deeply in love with her. This sets the stage for a series of transgressions which will result in tragedy.

Summary:

1. Roger Gnoan M’Bala, In the Name of Christ (1993, Ivory Coast, 82 min.)

In a small Ivorian village lives a much-despised little swineherd. One day, after one drink too many, a childlike God comes to him in a vision and elects him to save his people.

2. Franco Sacchi, This is Nollywood (U.S.A., 2007, 53 min)

This film tells the story of the Nigerian film industry—a revolution enabling Africans with few resources to tell African stories to African audiences.

Summary:

1. Ousmane Sembene, Mandabi (The Money Order) (Senegal, 1968, 90 min)

A poor Senegalese Muslim who, upon trying to cash a money-order at his village post office, somehow finds himself pitted against bureaucratic and societal forces.

2. Ousmane Sembene, Xala (Senegal, 1973, 128 min)

It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed.

Summary:

1. Kyle O’Donoghue, Brass Boys (South-Africa, 2007, 42 min.)

The Young Brass Sounds was founded in 2005 to cheer on the Ajax Cape Town team. The band keeps the kids off the street and away from gang related violence.

2. Robert Zemeckis and Richard Williams, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (USA, 1988, 120 min.)

Here animated characters are real beings who live and work alongside humans in the real world, most of them as actors in animated cartoons.

Summary:

1. Femke and Ilse Van Velzen, Fighting the Silence (The Netherlands, 2007, 53 min)

During Congo’s 7 year war, 80.000 women were raped. The story of women and men to change their society that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists.

2. Daniel Junge, Iron Ladies of Liberia (USA, 2007, 77 min.)

This film follows Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first female president in Africa in her first year in office and the daunting tasks she faces in war torn Liberia.

Summary: This film tells the story of the Nigerian film industry—a revolution enabling Africans with few resources to tell African stories to African audiences.

Summary: A celebration of amateur filmmaker Kahloucha, a house painter with an infectious personality and a love for seventies genre film, shoots hilarious features on a VHS Panasonic 3500.

Summary: A documentary about the challenges facing the institution of education in Sudan.

Summary: The story, adapted from a Malawi folktale, is told in a captivating body language, animation, song and vivid descriptions. This story is written and produced by Dr. Mercy Mirembe Ntangaare, /Drama Section, MDD Department, Makerere University and performed by John Masinde, student MDD.

Summary: This film is about Ethiopian and Somali domestic workers in Yemen, and in particular about the ways in which they survive under difficult circumstances.