Movements Towards Liberation
program description
This program deals with different forms of human movements that are relevant to the time in the set African country. The films use the camera as a tool to unearth stolen objects from Africa, document the women that fought vehemently for women's rights, reconstruct historic events, as well as to capture memories of colonization and the subsequent consequences of neo-colonial struggles that force many young people to risk their lives to cross the Sahara desert to get to Europe.
about the curator
Jacqueline Nsiah is part of the Berlinale selection committee and co-curator of the Africa Film Festival Cologne. Some of her past roles include the Cambridge African Film Festival and the Festival do Rio. She was co-director and curator of the African film festival UHURU in Rio de Janeiro, and a programmer for Film Africa in London. Jacqueline Nsiah was the project manager for a film platform at the Goethe Institut and was member of the selection committee at Berlinale Forum for the past four editions and co-curated the special programme “Fiktionsbescheinigung”. She received her M.A. in Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität Berlin and a B.A. in African Studies and Politics from SOAS University in London.
South Africa, 2017, 58m
On the morning of 16 June 1976, a group of school children in Soweto gathered peacefully to protest the mandatory inclusion of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. By nightfall over 200 of them lay dead, mowed down by Apartheid armed forces.
Angola, 2015, 1h 40m
The documentary Independence was born out of the need to preserve history (and the stories) of participants in the struggle for the liberation of Angola.
Ghana, 2022, 1h 1m
This documentary challenges perceptions that Ghanaian women’s activism around existential and political issues is of more recent or ‘western’ origin.
Ghana, 1970, 17m
Made 50 years ago, the film reveals for the first time hundreds of thousands of previously unseen rare Asante art treasures stolen by the British.
Senegal, 1994, 1h 27m
In post-colonial Senegal in the 1960s, teenagers in a small village form two small rival cliques: Les Ins, who prefer French pop singers, and The Kings, who favor American music.
Senegal, 1997, 1h 29m
Tableau Ferraille is a working-class neighborhood about ten kilometers outside Senegal's capital, Dakar. It is on the coast and populated by fishermen, but despite the coconut trees and colorful boats, it is no paradise.
Senegal, 2000, 57m
Mory has been living in France for several years. He has many friends and gets married to a European with whom he has three children.
Senegal, 2008, 26m
The Cry of the Sea is about the struggle of a mother, Yaye Bayam Diouf, who lost her only son in a dugout (or boat) for the Canary Islands.
DR Congo / Belgium, 2022, 14m
Filmmakers Paul Shemisi and Nizar Saleh travel from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany for the screening of their new film. During a layover in Angola, they're stopped at the airport because the airline doesn't trust their documents to be real.
Ghana, 2023, 10m
After some years of grappling with a mental health struggle that stole pieces of his personal and professional life, Fofo finds his way back to his true love: Cinema.
