{"id":10230,"date":"2020-05-25T13:30:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T11:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=10230"},"modified":"2020-05-25T13:38:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T11:38:11","slug":"travel-africa-with-26-iconic-movies-on-showmax-this-africa-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2020\/05\/25\/travel-africa-with-26-iconic-movies-on-showmax-this-africa-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel Africa With 26 Iconic Movies On Showmax This Africa Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The borders are closed, but that doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t explore your continent this Africa Day, thanks to this starter guide to classic African films on Showmax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BOTSWANA:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A United Kingdom (2016)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The year before South Africa formalised Apartheid in 1948, King Seretse Khama (two-time Golden Globe nominee David Oyelowo) of the neighbouring British protectorate of Bechuanaland married a British white woman, Ruth Williams (Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike). This upset both their families, not to mention the governments of South Africa, South West Africa, Rhodesia and the United Kingdom, who tried to declare Khama unfit to rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening film of the 2016 BFI London Film Festival, A United Kingdom is more than just a heart-warming true story of love overcoming all odds: it\u2019s also the story of Botswana\u2019s independence, its transition to democracy, and its fight to retain the rights to any diamonds found within its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Amma Asante (The Handmaid\u2019s Tale) won the Black Reel Award for Outstanding World Cinema Motion Picture; Guy Hibbert (Eye in the Sky) won a British Screenwriters’ Award for Best British Feature Film Writing; and South African actress Terry Pheto (Tsotsi) was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Seretse\u2019s sister, Naledi Khama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A United Kingdom has an 84% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Guardian hailing it as \u201ca beautifully shot, crowd-pleasing gem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BURKINA FASO:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moolad\u00e9 (2004)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ousmane Semb\u00e8ne\u2019s Moolad\u00e9 is set in a village in Burkina Faso, where four young girls flee their ritual \u2018purification\u2019 to the household of Colle\u2019 Ardo Gallo Sy, a strong-willed woman who has managed to shield her own teenage daughter from female genital mutilation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colle\u2019 invokes the time-honored custom of moolaad\u00e9 (sanctuary) to protect the fugitives but the ensuing stand-off pits her against the village traditionalists, both male and female, and endangers her daughter\u2019s upcoming marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moolad\u00e9 won Un Certain Regard and a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes in 2004. The movie has a 99% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics consensus calls it, \u201cA vibrant, powerful, and poignant glimpse into the struggles of women in modern Africa.\u201d It\u2019s been included in The New Yorker\u2019s list of the Top 25 Films Of The Century So Far, the BBC\u2019s list of the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, and Steven Schneider\u2019s 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAPE VERDE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nha Fala \/ My Voice My Voice (2002)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flora Gomes\u2019 Nha Fala \/ My Voice My Voice follows Vita, a young woman from a family in Cape Verde that has been cursed: any woman in the family who sings will be struck dead. But while studying in Paris, she falls in love with a musician and becomes an international star. Convinced she\u2019s proved the curse isn\u2019t real, she returns to Cape Verde to convince her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nha Fala \/ My Voice My Voice won six international awards, including the Laterna Magic Prize at Venice in 2002, and was the only film from Africa to compete at Berlin that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grammy-nominated Cameroonian star Manu Dibango, who tragically passed away from Covid-19 in March 2020, wrote and produced the film\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EGYPT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bab El Hadid \/ Cairo Station (1958)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Bab El Hadid \/ Cairo Station, Youssef Chahine both directs and stars as Qinawi, a crippled newspaper vendor who falls for a lemonade seller, Hanouma, who is engaged to another station worker, Abu-Serih. As Abu-Serih tries to unionise the station workers, Qinawi\u2019s fixation on Hanouma crosses the line from innocent crush to dangerous obsession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cairo Station was included in The Story of Film, the definitive history of cinema, and Chahine went on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cannes in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movie has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Time Out praised it as \u201ca great overlooked masterpiece\u201d, The Guardian as\u201cunmissable\u201d, The Hollywood Reporter as \u201ca jewel of a film\u201d and BBC as \u201can excellent thriller, and one that anticipates the serial killer genre that Hitchcock’s Psycho kick-started a few years later\u2026 a cinematic triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ETHIOPIA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvest: 3000 Years (1975)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haile Gerima\u2019s feature film debut, Harvest: 3000 Years, is set in Ethiopia and follows a slow-boiling feud between a wealthy land-owner and a protestor who feels he is mistreating his labourers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shot during the Ethiopian civil war, Harvest: 3000 Years won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Silver Leopard at Locarno in 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) presented a restored version of Harvest: 3000 Years at Cannes in 2006 and at Tribeca in 2008. As he wrote for Tribeca, the film \u201chas a particular kind of urgency which few pictures possess. This is the story of an entire people, and its collective longing for justice and good faith. An epic, not in scale but in emotional and political scope.\u201d The Tate Modern also honoured the film with a special screening in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th) has hailed Gerima as a \u201ca giant of cinema. A giant, I say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESWATINI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liyana (2017)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Liyana is a genre-defying documentary that tells the story of five children in the Kingdom of Eswatini who, with some guidance from South African storyteller Gcina Mhlope, turn past trauma into an original fable about a girl named Liyana, who embarks on a perilous quest to save her young twin brothers. The film weaves Liyana\u2019s animated journey together with poetic documentary scenes to create an inspiring tale of perseverance and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winner of over 35 awards, Liyana is the directorial debut of Swaziland-born-and-raised Aaron Kopp, with his wife Amanda. Before moving into directing, Aaron shot the Oscar-winning documentary Saving Face and the Oscar-nominated The Hunting Ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liyana is executive produced by Emmy winner Thandie Newton (Westworld), produced by Oscar winner Daniel Junge (Saving Face), and edited by Davis Coombe (Chasing Coral, Chasing Ice). Nigerian Shofela Coker created the stunning animated artwork, while South African Philip Miller composed the score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entertainment Weekly hailed it as \u201cgorgeous. Unlike any documentary you\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d while The Hollywood Reporter praised it as \u201cA lyrical work, as bright and captivating as it is poignant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KENYA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supa Modo (2018)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jo (Stycie Waweru) is a witty nine-year-old obsessed with Jackie Chan movies. She\u2019s also terminally ill. When she is taken back to her rural village to live out the rest of her short life, her only comfort is her dream of being a superhero – a dream her rebellious teenage sister Mwix (Nyawara Ndambia), overprotective mother Kathryn (Marrianne Nungo) and the entire village of Maweni think they can fulfil\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Kenyan Likarion Wainana and produced by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Perfume, Babylon Berlin), Supa Modo has won over 50 international awards, including Best European Film For Children at the European Children’s Film Association Awards in 2019, a Children\u2019s Jury Special Mention in the Generation 14Plus category at Berlin in 2019, and the Audience Award at Children\u2019s Film Festival Seattle in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supa Modo has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes: Variety called it “a tender, bittersweet fable,” while The Seattle Times wrote, “I’m glad movie theatres are dark because I ugly-cried my way through all 74 minutes of Supa Modo. I straight-up bawled my eyes out\u2026 Brutal and beautiful, melancholy and joyous, Supa Modo is simultaneously crushing and uplifting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MALAWI:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddha in Africa (2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a Chinese Buddhist orphanage in Africa, a Malawian teenager finds himself torn between his African roots and Chinese upbringing. Once the star performer with dreams of becoming a martial arts hero like Jet Li, Enock is now in his final year of school and has to make some tough decisions about his future. Will he return to his relatives in his home village or study abroad in Taiwan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by South African Nicole Schafer, Buddha in Africa was praised by Variety as \u201ca complicated portrait of what\u2019s been described as the latest chapter in Africa\u2019s long struggle against colonization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddha in Africa screened at IDFA 2019, arguably the world\u2019s top documentary festival, as part of their prestigious Best Of Fests line-up, after winning Best South African Documentary at the Durban International Film Festival. At the 2020 SAFTAs, Buddha in Africa won both Best Documentary and Best Directing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MALI:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Vie Sur Terre \/ Life on Earth (1998)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abderrahmane Sissako\u2019s 1998 film La Vie Sur Terre \/ Life on Earth follows Dramane, who returns from France to visit his father in a village in Mali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life on Earth is ranked joint fourth on the Tarifa-Tangiers African Film Festival\u2019s list of the 10 best African films of all time and won 10 international awards, including the Grand Prix at Fribourg, where the FIPRESCI critics jury also gave the film a Special Mention \u201cfor the high level of the director\u2019s political debate and the loveable, poetic and ironic view on the everyday life of his characters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sissako went on to direct Timbuktu, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2015 and named one of the Top 25 Films of the 21st Century by The New York Times, among other honours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SENEGAL:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hy\u00e8nes \/ Hyenas (1992)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Djibril Diop Mamb\u00e9ty’s 1992 classic Hy\u00e8nes \/ Hyenas, an exorbitantly rich woman returns to her poor Senegalese village and forces it to choose between her patronage and her old flame, now the mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hyenas was nominated for the Palme d\u2019Or at Cannes in 1992 and was ranked joint fourth on the Tarifa-Tangiers African Film Festival\u2019s list of the 10 best African films of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hollywood Reporter called it \u201ca wicked skewering of both the rich and those who seek their handouts\u2026 Mambety’s beautifully shot and colorfully performed fable entertains, but its final frames are no laughing matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other African classics on Showmax include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n