By now you’ve probably watched the (British) Channel 4 TV documentary film about Nigeria’s millionaire preachers–the fake healings, buckets full of money collected by church leaders (“tithes”), police escorts, mall openings as well as all that flash. This all against a background of grinding poverty. I watched it last night. Most Nigerian blogs not surprisingly […]
I finally got to see director Andrew Dosunmu’s debut feature film, “Restless City,” this summer (at the Urban World Film Festival). The story, part American dream narrative, revolves around a young West African immigrant, Djibril, who lives in Harlem, trying to start his record career, while selling CDs and delivering packages and mail on his moped. […]
Politics, repression, religion, exile, tradition and mysticism in Swaziland, Southern Africa's last absolute monarchy.
SABMiller's new Impala Beer is marketed to poor people who don’t buy other commercially distributed beers because they are too expensive.
For all the huffing and puffing in the West about the DRC’s cooked elections — President Joseph Kabila “polled” 49% and the Electoral Commission, stacked with Kabila cronies, “gave” opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi 32% of the vote — there’s a bottom line for elites. The Financial Times, in an editorial yesterday, gives it to us […]
It’s that time of year again. The students in my required Media and Culture course at The New School (I have a day job yes) just uploaded their final projects–a short documentary or commentary piece (limit under 5 minutes)–online. Here’s one of them. Student Erik Luers debates the decision by mainstream media organizations to show […]
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1 Mike Skinner playing keys in this “improvised” video for Ghostpoet makes perfect sense. The online audience at home voted from multiple choices options in real time. It included a yeti.
The Mozambican Associação da Luta Contra o Cancer (ALCC) enlists female superheroes to raise awareness around breast cancer. If you can’t read the small print copy: “Nobody’s immune to breast cancer. When we talk about breast cancer, there’s no women or superwomen. Everybody has to do the self-examination monthly. Fight with us against the enemy […]
Two events in London this year focused on female filmmakers working in African cinema. This is high exposure for a demographic of the African film industry that is generally low on the radar.
This list is partly self-indulgent. It is also a way–hopefully weekly–for me to keep an online record of films I still would like to see. Here’s a few. First up, Lotte Stoofs’s documentary film about the life of a landmark hotel in Beira, Mozambique:
A new ad for how DNA works feeds into a fear-riddled white South African state of mind about black crime and blacks-as-a-class as criminals.
Occasionally we have to promote our day jobs. Here are some excerpts from an op-ed that occasional AIAC blogger Herman Wasserman and I wrote last week for a South African publication on the latest manufactured scandal by the opposition Democratic Party (not to say that the ANC can’t avoid scandals)