Videos by Title: "L" and "M"

The language you cry in: the story of a Mende song (1998)

" ... traces the history of this song, a burial hymm of the Mende people brought by slaves to the rice plantations of the Southeast coast more than two hundred years ago."

Last grave at Dimbaza (1974, 16 mm)

Shot illegally in the Republic of South Africa, this documentary originally produced in 1974 exposes the oppression of Blacks and other people designated as colored under apartheid rule in South Africa.

Let’s Talk About It (2001). Director: Sithunyiwe Gece

Let's talk about it examines the attitudes of young people in Cape Town towards HIV and AIDS, and the challenges they face in practicing safer sex. Dispel your attitudes follows Philiswa, and HIV-positive activist, who discusses the virus during a crowded taxi ride to meet a man who is afraid to disclose his HIV-positive status. She meets the man and they discuss his fears.

Let Them Speak (c2002). Director: John Mbaka

Human rights have carried the wave of democratisation particularly in the new millenium Africa. In Kenya, cases of students unrest have been on the increase. The Legal Resources Foundation, a non-governmental organisation founded in 1993 has therefore taken the initiative to answer one key question. Why students unrest? This is a documentary of its School's Outreach Programme work in informal education to enable students realize their human rights, respect the rule of law and make use of existing administrative mechanisms to effectively resolve conflicts not only at school but at home and in society as a whole. The stakeholders of informal education are encouraged to provide for a forum through which students can more willingly participate in the day to day decision making.

The Life and Times and Sara Baartman: “The Hottentot Venus” (1998). Director: Zola Maseko

A documentary film of the life a Khoikhoi woman who was taken from South Africa in 1810 and exhibited as a freak across Britain. The image and ideas for "The Hottentot Venus" (particularly the interest in her sexual anatomy) swept through British popular culture. A court battle waged by abolitionists to free her from her exhibitors failed. In 1814, a year before her death, she was taken to France and became the object of scientific research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality.

Living the Hip Life (2007). Director: Jesse Weaver Shipley

"This film is a musical portrait of street life in urban West Africa. It follows the birth of Hiplife music in Accra, Ghana, a mix of various African musical forms and American hip hop. Archival footage and hip hop music videos are remixed with interviews and the daily lives of rap artists. We follow Reggie Rockstone, the Godfather of Hiplife in the founding of the musical movement, as well as the Mobile Boys, a group of aspiring rap artists as they try to make it in the music business"--Third World Newsreel website

Long Night’s Journey into Day (c2000). Directors: Frances Reid & Deborah Hoffmann

For over forty years, South Africa was governed by the most notorious form of racial domination since Nazi Germany. When it finally collapsed, those who had enforced apartheid's rule wanted amnesty for their crimes. Their victims wanted justice. As a compromise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed. As it investigated the crimes of apartheid, the Commission brought together victims and perpetrators to relive South Africa's brutal history. By revealing the past instead of burying it, the TRC hoped to pave the way to a peaceful future.

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela (c1999). Producers: David Fanning and Indra de Lanerolle

In-depth film biography of Nelson Mandela, the revered political leader credited for ending apartheid and bringing about a peaceful transformation to democracy in South Africa. His story is told through interviews with intimates, from his most trusted associates to his jailers on Robben Island, the prison where he was held for 27 years.

Looking for Busi (2001). Director: Robyn Hofmeyr

This is the story of a fifteen-year old South African girl, Busi, who is an HIV-positive mother. Busi's mother abandoned her when Busi becomes pregnant, even before testing positive for AIDS. Busi is chosen for a mother-to-child drug trial and to be the subject of a documentary. After the documentary airs and exposes that she is HIV-positive, Busi disappears, and the filmmaker and her friend search for her.

Lost in the Stars (c2003). Director: Daniel Mann

Original motion picture released in 1974. Based on Alan Paton’s novel, Cry the Beloved Country, Lost in the Stars is the story of a black South African minister who searches the unfamiliar back alleys and shanty towns of Johannesburg for his son, Absalom. But Kumalo's unwavering faith is put to the test when he finds Absalom in jail facing a capital murder charge. Courage, dignity and sacrifice fall prey to the whirlwind of racist hypocrisy and hollow justice in Absalom's trial. Absalom's reunion and reconciliation with this father, his jailhouse marriage to his pregnant sweetheart, and his heroic determination to tell the truth set the stage for a tragic climax.

Love changes people and people change things (1989)

South Africa is a melting pot of people with many cultures, differences and problems. It is a living example of the triumph of unity over diversity and proof that it is possible for all on this planet to live together in peace

Love in a Time of Sickness (2001). Director: Khalo Matabane

Khalo Matabane tells friends at dinner about meeting a woman he felt attracted to, then breaking off with her after she disclosed her HIV-positive status. Intercut with Khalo's thoughts about his own protected past and his attitudes to gender roles.

Le Malentendu Colonial (2004). Director: Jean-Marie Teno

The filmmaker looks at European colonialism in Africa through the lens of Christian evangelism as the model for the relationship between Africa and western countries today. The history of German missionaries in Namibia in the 19th and 20th centuries is discussed by African and German historians and theologians, revealing how colonialism destroyed African beliefs and social systems and replaced them with European ones.

Man made famine (1986)

Many people believe Africa's famine is due to natural causes such as drought, but it is not. It is caused by the neglect of its people.

Mandabi (c2005). Director Ousmane Sembene

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1968, Mandabi is a story about a man who receives a money order and finds that to cash it he must first deal with an intimidating web of bureaucracy. Meanwhile everyone around him begins to make plans for use of the money, turning his traditional world upside down before he has even laid hands on a cent, comically illustrating how complex daily life in Africa can be.

Mandekalou: Words of Memory (2005). Director: Lionel Guedj

"With its impassioned, declamatory singing and complex, interweaving instrumental patterns, the music of the Mande jeliou, the Mande griots, is both Africa's greatest claim to a significant classical tradition and the inspiration for some of the most vital popular music of the last half century"—Container

Mandela: the man & his country (1990)

Chronicles the life of Nelson Mandela against the backdrop of South African politics, including interviews and coverage of his release in 1990 after 26 years in prison.

Mandela's fight for freedom (1995)

Mandela, the man (1994)

Details the life of Nelson Mandela, his struggle to free black South Africans from Apartheid, and his dramatic rise to power over the government which had imprisoned him.

The Masai Today (c2004).

Describes the pastoral life of the Masai tribe in Africa. The program follows the life of a family over the course of seven years as a glimpse into the life of the Masai as they struggle with the challenges of modernity.

Master Harold and the boys (1984)

This is Athol Fugard's devastating drama about an adolescent in South Africa and his discovery that he is the master of the black man who helped to raise him.

Mau Mau (1955)

This film presents an account of the havoc wrought by the Mau Mau terrorist organization in Kenya, and of the efforts made to stamp out the movement.

Mbira music: the spirit of the people (1992)

The mbira, a small musical instrument, presents songs used during the war of liberation and the chants used by today's farmers.

A message from African healers (1985)

This is a timely presentation of some of the main features of this enduring African therapeutic system.

A Miner’s Tale (2001). Directors: Nicholass Hofmeyr & Gabriel Mondlane

Joaquim is a migrant laborer with a junior wife in urban South Africa and a senior wife and family in rural Mozambique. He is torn between his responsibilities for both. He is also torn between his understanding of his HIV infection when visiting his home village after being absent for four years and what traditional society expects of him. Joaquim must make a choice since the elders are adamant that it is his traditional duty to father more children with his wife, but Joachim does not want to infect her.

The Moment (2001). Director: Siyabonga Makhatini

The moment features men and women from different backgrounds who share their most personal thoughts about courtship and sexual behavior. They discuss the six stages of seduction: the moment you meet, the moment you connect, the moment you seduce, the moment you kiss, the moment you take your clothes off, and the moment before penetration. A caption asks us: at which moment do you decide to use a condom?

Moolaadé (2004). Director: Ousmane Sembene

Senegalese writer-director Ousmane Sembene makes an impassioned plea against the practice of salinde, or female circumcision, in this moving portrait of a society in transition. In a West African village run by uncompromising Muslim males, fiery Colle provides safe harbor for young girls fleeing their "cleansing" rituals. But what one man terms "a minor domestic issue" soon puts the whole town on the verge of bloodshed.

More than an investment (1989)

This video is about the development of the country, South Africa. It is a country with the potential development of a strong business sector.

Moving on: hunger for land in Zimbabwe (1982)

For more than a decade black Zimbabweans fought a bitter guerilla war to take back control of their land. Now that war has been won, Moving On asks how the African majority's hunger for land can be satisfied.

Music and culture (1992)

Offers a look at the Polynesian, African, and North American Indian cultures and examines the role played by music in the lives of members of each group.