THE FALCON GHANA
 

DAHOMEY, by Mati Diop, France / Senegal / Benin 2024, 67 mins.
November 2021. 26 royal treasures of the Kingdom of Dahomey are about to leave Paris to return to their country of origin, the present-day Republic of Benin. Along with thousands of others, these artefacts were plundered by French colonial troops in 1892. But what attitude to adopt to these ancestors’ homecoming in a country that had to forge ahead in their absence? The debate rages among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi.
 

LETTER FROM MY VILLAGE, by Safi Faye (deceased), Senegal 1975, 93 mins.
The ongoing drought in a Senegalese village has decimated millet and peanut farmers’ yields. The catastrophic damage brought about by the colonial era’s agricultural monoculture is becoming ever more palpable; farm labourer Ngor is now unable to afford the dowry for his lover Coumba and thus sets off to Dakar to try his luck with odd jobs. Filmmaker Safi Faye – who studied ethnology – frames the action
with her own comments, thus creating an audiovisual letter about her home village. Shot in three weeks with a small team, this docufiction is the remarkable product of her participatory collaboration with the villagers – among them her grandfather, who died shortly after filming wrapped. Safi Faye was the first sub-Saharan woman director whose films received commercial distribution. Her powerful oeuvre has thus far received all too little scholarly attention, even while receiving acclaim for how it looks at the experience of women and children in rural areas. The film will be shown as a tribute to Faye to mark the first anniversary of her death, accompanied by a talk where she will be remembered in conversation with guests.
 

CERTAIN WINDS FROM THE SOUTH, Eric Gyamfi, Ghana 2023, 43mins.
One fateful evening, M’ma Asana receives a visit from her son-in-law, Issah. He has come to inform her of his decision to embark on a journey to the south of Ghana in search of greener pastures. Through conversations between the two characters, and reflections of a few others, we uncover a vicious cycle of inequality that seeks to threaten their already precarious future. The film is an adaptation of a short story of the same title by Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo. This story is part of her larger collection of short stories entitled “No Sweetness
Here.” The collection takes a critical look at post-independence Ghanaian society.
 

BAMAKO, Abderrahmane Sissako, France/Mali 2006, 118 mins.

Melé is a singer in a bar, her husband Chaka is unemployed, their relationship is torn apart... In the courtyard of the house they share with other families, a court has been set up. Representatives of African civil society have initiated legal proceedings against the World Bank and the IMF, which they consider responsible for the tragedy that is shaking Africa. Between pleadings and testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard. Chaka seems indifferent to this unprecedented desire of Africa to claim its rights...
 

WHO DO I BELONG TO?, Meryam Joobeur, Canada/France/Tunisia 2024, 117
mins.
Aïcha is gifted with prophetic dreams. She lives on a farm in northern Tunisia with her husband Brahim and their three sons. Aïcha and Brahim’s world is turned upside down when their two eldest boys, Mehdi and Amine, go off to war. Having lived up to this point solely for their children, the parents now find themselves in a new and painful reality. A few months later, Mehdi returns home with a pregnant wife named
Reem whose niqab and silence deeply unsettle Brahim. Aïcha, on the other hand, welcomes Mehdi and Reem into the family home and vows to protect them at all costs. Mehdi’s return triggers strange events in the village. Aïcha is so consumed with protecting her son that, at first, she barely notices the rising fear in the
community. She must face the limits of her maternal love to counteract the growing darkness.
 

TIMBUKTU, Abderrahmane Sissako, France/Mauritania 2014, 96 mins.
Not far from Timbuktu, now ruled by religious fundamentalists, Kidane lives peacefully with his wife and children. In town, people suffer from the regime of terror imposed by the Jihadists. But the family’s life changes abruptly after an accident—now Kidane’s fate is in the hands of the Jihadists.
 

BLACK TEA, Abderrahmane Sissako, France / Mauritania / Luxembourg / Taiwan /
Cote d'Ivoire 2024, 111 mins.
Aya is a woman in her early thirties. After astonishing everyone by saying “No” on her wedding day, she leaves the Ivory Coast for a new life in China. Living in an area where the African diaspora meets the Chinese culture, she finds a job in a tea boutique owned by Cai, a 45-year-old Chinese man. In the privacy of the shop’s backroom, Cai initiates Aya into the Chinese tea ceremony. As he teaches her this ancient art, their relationship slowly grows into one of tender love. But for their burgeoning passion to be supported by trust, both of them must let go of their burdens and face up to their pasts.
 

THE NIGHT STILL SMELLS OF GUNPOWDER, Inadelso Cossa, Mozambique /
Germany / France / Portugal / Netherlands / Norway 2024, 93 mins.
It is dark and stays dark. Through the medium of nightmares, sounds, absent images and a child’s black-and-white photo in dry foliage, the film – slowly and in fragments – explores the memory of the civil war in Mozambique, which lasted from 1977 to 1992. Archival material is carefully deployed. The fighters for independence (FRELIMO) and the rebels of the National Resistance (RENAMO) fought each other,
and countless landmines claimed their victims. Filmmaker Inadelso Cossa, still a carefree child at the time, now visits his grandmother’s village. Victims, perpetrators, former rebel fighters and surviving civilians live here. Cossa asks the sound recordist Moises, who hears voices from the graves at dusk: “Do you want to talk about it?” The filmmaker’s grandmother is suffering from the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s and can only remember at night. A former rebel numbs himself with alcohol and continues the battles in his soul. The echoes of horror are omnipresent. Against the backdrop of Mozambique’s now taboo civil war history, As Noites Ainda Cheiram a Pólvora develops a sensory approach to ghosts, to missing and fictitious memories.

DISCO AFRIKA, Luck Razanajoana, France / Madagascar / Germany / Mauritius /
South Africa / Qatar 2023, 81 mins.
In Madagascar, 20-year-old Kwame struggles to make a living in the clandestine sapphire mines. An unexpected event takes him back to his hometown. There, as he is reunited with his mother and old friends, he is also confronted by the rampant corruption that plagues his country. Kwame is forced to choose between easy money and loyalty; between individualism and a political awakening. The young protagonist Kwame seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders but he always finds the strength to search for answers and a way to a better future. The film echoes the African civil rights movements of the 1970s – an era which marked an artistic and musical awakening as a continuation of the struggle for independence. In Kwame’s personal story, the film also addresses the legacy of colonialism and the history of resistance and throws a spotlight on the contemporary situation.