African Diary

A Suitable Girl

April 2017 •English

A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

April 1938 •German

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

June 1938 •German

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

Zaineb Hates the Snow

June 2016 •French

When her mother remarries and her newly blended family moves to Canada, a 9-year-old Tunisia girl's life takes a profound turn as she struggles to find her place and maintain her Muslim identity in a new land.

The Aryans

April 2014 •German

THE ARYANS is Mo Asumang's personal journey into the madness of racism during which she meets German neo-Nazis, the US leading racist, the notorious Tom Metzger and Ku Klux Klan members in the alarming twilight of the Midwest. In The ARYANS Mo questions the completely wrong interpretation of "Aryanism" - a phenomenon of the tall, blond and blue-eyed master race.

I Was Only 14

November 2016 •Dutch

Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.

The Story of the Weeping Camel

June 2003 •Mongolian

When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

December 2004 •English

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

Full Metal Village

April 2007 •German

The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.

Bukovyna, Ukrainian Land

April 1939 •Ukrainian

Dovzhenko and Solntseva's documentary about the Bukovina region.

Victory in Soviet Ukraine

April 1945 •Russian

A wartime documentary directed by Alexander Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva, depicting the final campaigns that drove Nazi forces from Ukraine in 1944–45. Combining frontline footage, liberated cityscapes, and scenes of returning civilians, the film chronicles both the devastation of occupation and the triumph of Soviet arms. It stands as both a historical record of the Ukrainian front and a patriotic celebration of victory at the close of the Second World War.

Tres instantes, un grito

October 2013 •Spanish

Ukraine in Flames

April 1943 •Russian

A 1943 Soviet war propaganda film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Yuliya Solntseva. It is Dovzhenko's second World War II documentary, and dealt with the Battle of Kharkiv. The film incorporates German footage of the invasion of Ukraine, which was later captured by the Soviets.

Liberation

April 1940 •Ukrainian

Wartime documentary by Dovzhenko and Solntseva.

Wild Women Don't Have the Blues

January 1989 •English

Recaptures the lives and times of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, and the other legendary women who made blues music a vital part of American culture. The film brings together for the first time dozens of rare, classic renditions of the early blues.

The Head of a Pin

June 2004 •English

The Head of a Pin reveals the awkward ruminations of the filmmaker and her friends as they attempt to learn about nature. Starting out as an examination of the differences between urban and rural life, between the daily grind and summer vacations, the film turns unexpectedly into a portrait of what happens when city dwellers encounter a country spider.

The Odds of Recovery

June 2002 •English

After a twenty year period of multiple illnesses and injuries, the filmmaker turns the camera on herself as a way to analyze her chances for a happier, healthier life. In the process, she captures the frustration, tedium and petty annoyances of a revolving-door relationship with the medical establishment, while portraying the complicated web of emotions that accompany any medical problem. With humor and honesty, The Odds of Recovery uses the filmmaker's medical history as a means to address a perennial human problem: the desire to avoid conflict and deny the need for radical change.

Microcosmos

September 1996 •French

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

Town Bloody Hall

April 1979 •English

Norman Mailer and a panel of feminists — Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling — debate the issue of Women's Liberation.

Perfect Image?

January 1989 •English

Two actresses take us through a series of 'raps' and sketches about what it means to be beautiful and black.