Doclisboa 2011: White man’s view of …
Doclisboa 2011 showed a rich retrospective of documentaries on the liberation movements of the earlier Portuguese colonies in Africa.
Africa
It was no secret
The “secret war” takes us into the inconcievable reality of a war conducted in the shadow of the Vietnam war. As the film impies, the “secret war” is an ancestor of today’s U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
A battle you cannot win
Two films – one fiction and one documentary – tell an African story from the perspective of the white people involved, who find themselves labelled as the enemy. Both films confront us with the colonial past and raise questions about the feasibility of exporting democracy and enforcing it on fundamentally different societies.
NEW SOUTH AFRICAN TALENT: Lots to Explore
Two South African film students made a feature-length music documentary on a budget of only one thousand euros and it was well received at the Encounters Festival. Lots of issues to explore but no money for production is the reality for these new filmmakers
THESSALONIKI 2005: Fresh Sea Breezes
Two very different films caught the author’s attention at Thessaloniki Doc fest in March. Despite their difference, they both demonstrated that it is what the films see and how they see it that matters.
From being nobody to somebody
The Swenkas are a group of poor, black South Africans in Johannesburg performing a ritual known as ‘swanking’.
A portrait of the tabla player, percussionist and world musician Zakir Hussain
“A rhythm experience” is the subtitle Lutz Leonhardt uses for his 90-minute film Zakir and his Friends. A very precise term for this beautiful music film that takes you very far from the MTV experience.