Research Guides: IDS 101: Africa in the Global Era: Finding Films

Streaming Video Provided by the Library

Academic Video Online (AVON)
AVON, a streaming media service, has more than 70,000 video titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. This resource is made available courtesy of the Mark O. Hatfield Library’s consortial relationship with Orbis Cascade Alliance.
KanopyBase
The collection of films support a wide variety of subject areas including the arts, media studies, politics, diversity, equity and inclusion, LGBTQAI+, psychology, business, sciences, health, education, history.

Feature Films about Africa

Invictus (2009)
Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.S76 I585 2010

As hosts of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, South Africa's low ranked national team, the Springboks, have a berth in the tournament. Mandela begins making public appearances supporting the team, and meets privately with captain Francois Pienaar, encouraging him to inspire his teammates to victory.
Mister Johnson (1990)
Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.D7 M555 1997

Funny and sometimes poignant look at the struggle between men of the British Empire and African villagers.
Outbreak (1995)
Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.S87 O87 1997

Dustin Hoffman plays Sam Daniels, a take-charge army virologist trying to stave off global biological meltdown. A rare killer virus from the jungles of Zaire has taken hold in a California community.
Sometimes in April (2005)
Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.W3 S65 2005

Based on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where over the course of 100 days an estimated 800,000 people were killed in a terrifying purge by Hutu nationalists against their Tutsi countrymen. In English and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles.
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Call Number: Hatfield Library Featured (DVD) PN1995.9.B55 H67 2005

Based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a five-star-hotel manager who uses his wits and persuasion in striving to save more than 1,200 Tutsis and Hutus from being massacred by the Interahamwe militia during the 1994 Rwandan conflict.
The constant gardener
Call Number: Hatfield Library Featured (DVD) PN1995.9.S87 C645 2006

In a remote area of Northern Kenya, activist Tessa Quayle is found brutally murdered. Tessa's companion, a doctor, appears to have fled the scene, and all the evidence points to a crime of passion...
Nirgendwo in Afrika - Nowhere in Africa (2001)
Call Number: Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.G4 N47 2003

The true tale of a Jewish family who flee the Nazi regime in 1938 and learns to cope with their new life, and each other, on a remote farm in Kenya. In German and Swahili and English, English subtitles.

Feature Films from South Africa

District 9 (2009)
Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.S26 D57 2009

Twenty years ago, aliens from another planet made contact with Earth. Now, the refugee camp they are forced to live in has deteriorated into a slum-like ghetto.

Drum (2004)

Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.G4 D78 2006

Drum tells the story of Henry Nxumalo, South Africa's leading investigative reporter [in the 1950's], exposing the apartheid regime's darkest secrets in the pages of the first magazine aimed at a black readership - DRUM

Forgiveness (2004)

Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.D7 F674 2005

A white former South African policeman who tortured and killed a black anti-apartheid activists seeks forgiveness from the victim's family. (In English and Afrikaans with English subtitles)

Son of Man (2006)

Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.9.B55 S615 2009

A retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, set in contemporary South Africa. Xhosu and English with English subtitles.

Tsotsi (2005)

Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.T67 T76 2006

A young man running with a criminal gang on the streets of Johannesburg, Tsotsi - a nickname meaning thug - is immersed in a world of violence that seems to leave him unaffected, until he discovers an infant in the back seat of a car he has stolen. In Tsotsitaal, with English subtitles.

Yesterday (2004)

Call Number: HAT AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.Z8 Y47 2006

A drama about the AIDS epidemic in Africa as seen through the lives of one family. Dialogue in Zulu with English subtitles.

Other African Films

Everyone's Child (1996) by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Call Number: Library AV Video PN1995.9.D7 E8 1996

In a rural village in Zimbabwe, Tamari and Itai are devastated when both their parents die of AIDS.

Jit (1990)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video PN1995.9.C55 J58 1993

The beat of jit-jive drives the story, set in Zimbabwe, of a fun-loving youth called UK, who is determined to win the heart of Sofi, a stately beauty closely guarded by her gangster boyfriend.

Sankofa (1993) by Haile Gerima

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video PN1995.9.D7 S235 1995

The story about the transformation of Mona, a self-possessed African-American woman sent on a spiritual journey in time to experience the pain of slavery and the discovery of her African identity.
Videocassette release of the 1993 motion picture. In English, Twi, and Akan with English subtitles.

Teza (2008)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.A54 T49 2008

After several years studying medicine in Germany, Ethiopian intellectual Anberber returns to his Ethiopia during the repressive totalitarian regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu. In Amharic, English, German; optional subtitles in English

Films by or about Ousmane Sembène

Moolaadé (2004) by Ousmane Sembène
Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.B25 M66 2007

In a small village in Burkina Faso, four young girls have fled the ritual of "purification" (female circumcision) and seek protection -- moolaadé -- with a circucised woman who helped her own daughter escape excision seven years earlier. Bambara and French dialogue with English subtitles.

Camp de Thiaroye (1987)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.W7 C25 2008

After defending France, a group of black soldiers are placed in a transit camp before returning home. As their stay lengthens, tensions rise until a petty dispute turns into full-scale rebellion. In Wolof and French with English subtitles.

Faat Kine (1999)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.W7 F22 2001

The drama of Faat Kine, an independent single mother and business woman who runs a gas station franchise; and also born in 1960, the same year Senegalese independence was attained. In French and Wolof with English subtitles.

Xala (1974)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.W7 X25 2005

In a fictional African country, a rich, self-made businessman and member of the post-colonial ruling elite takes on a third wife to show the world his wealth, only to be stricken by a curse... French and Wolof with English subtitles.

La noire de-- - Black Girl (1965)

Call Number: Hatfield Library AV Video (DVD) PN1995.91.F7 N64 2005

A Senegalese maid goes to the Riviera with her employers and gains a new perspective on what it means to be African outside of Africa. In French with English subtitles.

IDS 101: Africa in the Global Era

Documentary Films

Francophone African Films

Streaming Video Provided by the Library

Feature Films about Africa

Feature Films from South Africa

Other African Films

Films by or about Ousmane Sembène

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