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‘Room 2806’ revisits sexual assault case which felled aspiring French president
It was 2011 and #MeToo was far off. It was a world where women were treated as lesser, and poor people and immigrants were second-class citizens. It was in this context that Nafi..
Afronauts are forever | The enduring cultural legacy of the ‘Zambia Space Program’
In Afronauts (2014), a short film by Ghanaian filmmaker Nuotama Frances Bodomo, 17-year-old Matha has been chosen to be Zambia’s first person to be sent to the moon. Through rigo..
Baloji tackles skin bleaching in short film ‘Never Look At The Sun’
Imagine a woman facing a mirror, surrounded by beauty items; a powerful, common image. It is ritualised: the mirror is a women’s best friend and worst enemy at the same time. Ref..
‘Give Up The Ghost’ | Infertility, polygamy and exclusion in Zain Duraie’s short film
Still today in many societies, becoming a mother is the most important accomplishment of womanhood, while the inability to conceive is still a taboo. Set in Jordan, Give Up the G..
Femininity, sexuality, hypersexualization and sisterhood in Maya Cozier’s ‘She Paradise’
Set in Trinidad and Tobago, She Paradise (2019) is a sensitive and empowering short-film made by Caribbean filmmaker Maya Cozier, and co-written with Melina Brown. It features On..
‘In My Room’ | The hypnotic portrait of a lockdown through the voice of a grandmother
If the premiere of Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-speaking short film The Human Voice seemed to be the event of the 2020 edition of the Venice film festival, In My Room is I bel..
‘In Praise Of Still Boys’ | Sierra Leonian poet and filmmaker Julianknxx on the complexity of ancestry
“There’s this need to tell useful and meaningful stories,” says Julianknxx about his body of work. The London-based Sierra Leonean artist didn’t set out to become a poet, “It jus..
‘Black is King’ | Beyoncé reverses colonial stereotypes and shows Black Americans’ broken dreams
One year after the release of the remake of The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019), Disney and Parkwood Entertainment have recently released Beyoncé’s new visual album, Black is King…
‘Dancing at Dusk’ | 38 dancers from 14 African countries restage Pina Bausch’s ‘The Rite of Spring’
A beach of white sand. The light bleaching from the sky. A girl lying on a red cloth. An eerie bassoon piercing the silence. This is the way in which audiences get their first gl..
‘Black Venus’ is the film exposing the ruthlessness of the colonial gaze
Born on 29th December 1789, she was called the Hottentot Venus, but her name was Sawtche, better known as Saartjie Baartman. Object of all kind of fantasies and imagination due t..