The 10th edition of the International Pan-African film festival in Cannes, France goes from April 17-21. If you’re lucky enough to attend, here are five films on our radar. Dialemi – Elle s’amuse (My Love: She’s having fun) by Gabonese director Nadine Otsobogo is a bit of magic realism. A sculptor pounds away at a stone bust in his seaside home, where he lives alone. A mysterious woman appears, who the sculptor’s been waiting for. Excerpt above. Next, though 5 Egyptian Pounds is Egyptian director Mohammed Adeeb’s first film, it was chosen to be screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner. A middle aged woman is being followed around Cairo by a somber, mysterious younger man. The climax of the film is revealed through his significance to her: 

Not much has been discussed about Rafael Padilla, a formerly enslaved Cuban man who became one of the first Black artists in France. Omar Sy is set to star as Padilla in an upcoming feature length film on his life. This documentary by directors Samia Chala and Thierry Leclère captures the stage production: Chocolat – Clown Nègre (“Chocolate, the black clown”). They hope to “interrogate our gaze, our confronting of the other, our construction of stereotypes and our discourse on xenophobia.” Here’s a fragment, and below’s a video with the makers of the film (in French):

Colored Confederates. A touchy subject in my own family (there are rumors that there was a Black Confederate soldier by choice), Ken Wyatt is hoping to shed some light on this much-debated topic and whether that “choice” ever truly existed. Anyone from the South in the United States is familiar with the arguments by mostly White southerners of the historical legacy surrounding the Confederacy and its flag.

And lastly, Tunisian filmmaker Mohamed Zran exposes a complete timeline of the Arab Spring in his documentary, Dégage, purportedly wholly from the perspective of everyday citizens. The trailer introduces an oft not heard perspective, from a child: