Portal:African cinema
Ramsey Nouah (b. 19 December 1970) is a Nigerian actor and director. His acting career took off in the early 90s when he won a leading role in the Nigerian TV soap opera Fortunes (1993-94) in his first-ever audition. His first major movie role followed in 1996 with Silent Night and continued with a string of starring roles in popular films alongside Nollywood leading actresses Genevieve Nnaji, Stella Damasus, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Stephanie Okereke Linus, among others, to become one of Nollywood's most in-demand actors.
In 2010 Nouah won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in The Figurine (2009), a supernatural thriller by Kunle Afolayan and the year’s biggest box office draw in Nigeria.
Nouah made his directorial debut with Living in Bondage: Breaking Free in 2019, a sequel to the Nollywood classic Living in Bondage (1992), and which ranks 21st on the list of highest-grossing Nigerian films of all time. The film garnered over a dozen nominations and multiple wins, including seven awards at the 2020 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards, including Best Overall Movie and Best Best Director.
In 2020 he went on to direct Rattle Snake: The Ahanna Story, a remake of the Nollywood classic action film Rattlesnake (1995). The film holds the 43rd spot on the list of highest-grossing Nigerian films of all time. A box office success, Rattlensnake also secured over three dozen award nominations and multiple wins including another AMVCA Best Director award for Nouah in 2022.
Tòkunbò, an Action drama film starring Gideon Okeke in the title role, is Nouah’s third directorial feature. It was released on Netflix on August 23rd, reaching a 10 Top ranking in Nigeria within its first week.
The South African Film and Television Awards (often referred as the SAFTAs or Golden Horns) is an annual South African awards ceremony hosted by the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), to honor creative excellence in the local film and television industry as assessed by the volunteer judges. The various category winners are awarded a statuette, officially called the Golden Horn, and a certificate. Only South African citizens are eligible for the awards, first presented in 2006.
Among the biggest winners of the 2023 Awards were the Netflix drama Silverton Siege, which was the most-awarded film taking home six awards, the Netflix comedy series, How to Ruin Christmas with five awards, and Gaia, a horror film, that won four out of its nine nominations.
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Countries are starting to submit nominations to the 97th Academy Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film. African submissions include:
- Algeria’s Algiers by writer-director Chakib Taleb-Bendiab which takes place during the Algerian Civil War and centers around the investigation of a young girl’s kidnapping
- Egypt’s Flight 404 by Hani Khalifa and starring Mona Zaki as a woman whose pilgrimage to Mecca is suddenly interrupted with an emergency that requires her to seek funds from people from her shady past.
- Kenya’s Nawi directed by Kenyans Vallentine Chelluget and Apuu Mourine alongside Kevin Schmutzler and Toby Schmutzler from Germany, about a young girl from northwestern rural Kenya who enters a writing competition.
- Morocco’s Everybody Loves Touda by Nabil Ayouch about a young singer (Nisrin Erradi) who dreams of becoming a traditional Moroccan folk singer and moving to Casablanca for greater recognition and a better life for her son.
- Senegal’s Dahomey by Mati Diop. The film, winner of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival top prize, the Golden Bear, follows the journey of 26 plundered royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey and their return from France to Benin.
The Nigerian Minister of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa unveiled the government's plan to generate $100 billion and create over two million jobs from Nigeria’s creative economy by 2030. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s creative economy contributed $5 billion, or just 1.2% to Nigeria’s GDP in 2022.
Viva Riva! is a 2010 Congolese crime thriller film written and directed by Djo Tunda Wa Munga. The film received 12 nominations and won 6 awards at the 7th Africa Movie Academy Awards, making it the most awarded film in the history of the AMAA's up to that date. Its awards included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Production Design. Viva Riva! also won at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards for Best African Movie.
The film takes place in Kinshasa during a fuel shortage crisis. Riva (Patsha Bay), a small-time thug arrives in his hometown with a truckload of fuel he has stolen from Cesar (Hoji Fortuna), an Angolan gangster who is hot on his trail. Riva's troubles only intensify when he falls for Nora (Manie Malone), the girlfriend of a local gang lord.
Wa Munga explained in an interview, “I wanted to make a genre film, because that made it easier for the audience to get into." "Also, the genre film or the noir film has the advantage that you can talk about the social context, you can raise political issues, but at the same time I'm not preaching."
Reviews from critics were largely positive, including from international media such as the New York Times,The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Le Figaro, and Le Monde. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 87% based on reviews from 60 critics. Widely available on streaming platforms, Viva Riva can be watched for free on Tubi.
No Simple Way Home (2022) by South Sudanese filmmaker Akuol de Mabior in her debut feature, is the first ever South Sudanese film production to screen at the Berlin Film Festival. The documentary is a tribute to the director's father, John Garang de Mabior, considered the founding father of South Sudan, and recounts her and her mother's return to the country after years in exile.
The screening permit of the award-winning Zanka Contact (2020), was suspended by the government-backed Moroccan Cinematographic Centre (CCM), which helped fund the film, due to the inclusion of a song by the Sahrawi singer Mariem Hassan. Hassan supported the Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state in the Western Sahara, considered an integral part of Moroccan territory by the government. Directed by French-Moroccan filmmaker Ismael El Iraki, the film was inspired by his journey as a survivor of the 2015 Paris Bataclan attacks and follows the love story of an aging rock star and a singer.
The Blue Elephant 2, a 2019 Egyptian drama horror mystery crime thriller film directed by Marwan Hamed became the highest-grossing Egyptian film in the history of Egyptian cinema... Starring Karim Abdel Aziz, Khaled El Sawy, Nelly Karim and Sherine Reda in the lead roles, the film is a sequel to the 2014 box office hit The Blue Elephant.
Moroccan film director Nabil Ayouche is a co-founder of Aflamin, the first Moroccan VOD platform dedicated to Moroccan cinema and international independent films. Among its aims is to make Moroccan film more legally accessible to Moroccans while diminishing piracy.
All the characters and sets in the Zambian animationThe Legend of the Sky Kingdom (2003) were constructed from junk found by the filmmakers in a lot next to their offices. It was a stylistic choice necessitated by budget considerations as well as inspired by the wire and metalwork of Africa's folk artists, who often transform discarded items into works of art. It was the country's first full-length animated film.
Hafsa Zinaï Koudil (b 13 September 1951) is an Algerian novelist, journalist and film director living in France. She is best known for her first feature film Le démon au féminin (1993) based on the true story of Latifa, an Algerian professional who refused to wear a headscarf. At the request of her husband, Latifa was violently exorcised by Islamic fundamentalists in 1991. After receiving death threats while shooting the film, Koudil fled into exile in Tunisia. Accompanied by a police escort, she screened her film at the Amiens International Film Festival, where her film shared the Prix du Public.
Mohamed Emam (Arabic: محمد عادل محمد إمام; born 16 September 1984) is an Egyptian actor. He comes from a prominent family of filmmakers; his father is Adel Emam, one of Egypt's most famous actors, and his brother is the director Ramy Imam. Emam's first major film role was in the The Yacoubian Building (2006), then the most expensive Egyptian film, and like the eponymous novel, a scathing portrayal of modern Egyptian society. His next major role was a controversial comedy, Hassan and Marcus (2008) starring his father and Omar Sharif that addressed the tension between Muslims and Coptic Christians and won him a prize from the Alexandria International Film Festival in 2008. He continues to regularly star in Egyptian films and TV series, most recently in the Ramadan mini-series Cobra (2024).
Babetida Sadjo (b. on 19 September 1983) is a Belgian Guinea-Bissau-born actress best known for her role in Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil (2021) for which she received wide acclaim for her starring role in the psychological drama. She also starred in the award-winning Icelandic drama Breathe Normally (2017) as a traveler from Guinea-Bissau trying to escape from her country's persecution of homosexuals by seeking asylum in Canada.
Majid Michel (b. 22 September, is a Ghanaian actor whose career has long-straddled both the Ghanaian and Nigerian film industries. He first gained prominence in the popular television serial drama Things We Do for Love (2003-06) which was followed by the film Divine Love, which provided him with his breakout starring role alongside Jackie Aygemang and Van Vicker. Michel has been nominated six times for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Africa Movie Academy Awards and won the award in 2012 for Somewhere in Africa. He currently can be seen in Ramsey Nouah’s Netflix action drama,Tòkunbò released in August of this year.
In Europe, people only see the terrorists, but they never tell stories about those who resisted terrorism, and there are many, many people like that in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria… Wherever Daesh and Al Qaeda are, there are also people resisting. But their stories remain untold. My cinema highlights these untold stories to open the eyes of Western people who are full of prejudice about Africa and the Arab world.
Hind Meddeb, French-Tunisian-Moroccan filmmaker and journalist
Flight 404 is a 2024 Egyptian thriller directed by Hani Khalifa starring Mona Zaki, with a script by Mohamed Ragaa, and produced by Mohamed Hefzy. The film follows Ghada (Zaki) a woman whose tainted past resurfaces as she is about to embark on a pilgrimage to Mecca. A hit in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the film broke Egyptian box office records for a female-led film.
The soundtrack includes 15 original songs by Jordanian-Canadian film composer Suad Bushnaq and was nominated for the Best Soundtrack Septimius Award in 2024. In addition, a new arrangement of 'Ya Rayehin Lil-Nabi', the famous 1953 song from iconic Egyptian singer Layla Murad appears in the closing credits. The song sparked such interest among cinemagoers that the producers of the film released some background notes after the film's release.
'Ya Rayehin Lil-Nabi' is based on one of the most famous Sufi poems by Rabia Basri, an Arab Muslim saint and one of the earliest Sufi mystics. The idea of using the song, originally composed by Riad Al Sunbati and Abo El Seoud El Ebiary for Murad, was conceived by the film's director and writer and to align with the film's key plot events. Music producer Kareem Gaber, also known as “Al Waili” was brought on board to create a fresh and original arrangement while preserving the presence of Murad's voice and integrating the vocals of Nada Abbas.
Mabata Bata is a 2017 Mozambican film directed by Sol de Carvalho. The film is a magic-realist adaption from a short story by Mia Couto, one of Mozambique's most prominent writers and 2013 winner of the Camões Prize, the most important literary award in the Portuguese language.
Mabata Bata tells the story of Azarias, a young orphaned shepherd who dreams of going to school but has to tend to his uncle’s herd. When Mabata Bata, the herd’s biggest ox steps on a landmine from the civil war, a frightened Azarias flees to the forest, and a series of magical events is triggered.
While Cuto’s short story is written in Portuguese de Carvalho scripted the film mostly in Shangaan, a Bantu language spoken in Southern Mozambique. “He [Cuto] was the first one to tell me to go ahead with Shangaan…to make the characters flow better and create more identification with the audience and with the object of the film’s content”.
The film won multiple awards, including Best Feature Film at the New York City Independent Film Festival; Best Film Award at the Cabo Verde International Film Festival; and Best Photography of a Fiction Feature Film and Best Editing at FESPACO.
The film can be streamed on Vimeo.
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