30 Anniversary, A Review in Films

In his pio­neer­ing film the great Sene­galese author and direc­tor explores the com­plex dynam­ics of the imme­di­ate post-colo­nial period through the simple, dev­as­tat­ing story of a young woman. Dioua­na lives in Dakar and works as nanny for a rich French family. When her employ­ers move back to France, they take Dioua­na with the. While she looks for­ward to a new cos­mopoli­tan lifestyle, she soon real­izes what it means to be an African. She is like a piece of prop­er­ty in the hands of her employ­ers – the black girl who belongs to…

LA NOIRE DE… is con­sid­ered the first sub-saha­ran film by an African film­mak­er to receive inter­na­tion­al atten­tion. It won the Prix Jean Vigo at Cannes as well as many other awards. While it has its own unique style, it draws much inspi­ra­tion from French New Wave, with bril­liant black & white images and an uncon­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive. The main actress Thérèse M’Bissine Diop later said that she was social­ly ostra­cized by people in Sene­gal and even her own family for having played in the film.

The Aus­tralian broth­ers Michael, Dan, and James Leahy were the first white people to go on an expe­di­tion from 1930 to 1934 to the unchart­ed moun­tain­ous area of New Guinea, … read more

“I thought that the audi­ence would not simply wait for the mys­ter­ies to be dis­pelled but would come up with their own solu­tions, supply their own answers, and so, in … read more

The Baka pyg­mies live in the rain forest of south­ern Cameroon. Lengé is the sto­ry­teller of his tribe. For seven min­utes, the camera films the old man’s slight­ly sway­ing body … read more

Sergei Eisen­stein planned to make an opus magnum about Mexico and its cul­ture. He wanted to cap­ture the spirit of Mexico in a film with a pro­logue, four episodes, and … read more

Renowned ethno­graph­ic film­mak­ers David and Judith Mac­Dougall explore the many mean­ings of pho­tog­ra­phy in this pro­found and pen­e­trat­ing doc­u­men­tary. The film focus­es on the pho­tog­ra­phers of Mus­soorie, a hill sta­tion … read more

“He gets up around five, when the man who is writ­ing about him goes to bed.” This is how the author Hubert Fichte begins his story about the “casual dock … read more

This film shows pic­tures of daily life in the Por­tuguese fish­ing vil­lage Ses­im­bra, south of Lisbon, during Salazar’s dic­ta­tor­ship in 1964. Mau’s pho­tographs of fish dis­played in geo­met­ric pat­terns and … read more

It all began with the idea to ini­ti­ate a cul­tur­al exchange: Two film­mak­ers, an Indian and a French­man, were to create their own per­son­al take on the same sub­ject. Both … read more