Manu Dibango
How African artists have spread African culture all over the world, especially music, since the harsh years of decolonization, trying to offer a nicer portrait of this amazing continent, historically known for tragic subjects, such as slavery, famine, war and political chaos.
Soul Power is a 2008 documentary film about the Zaire 74 music festival in Kinshasa which accompanied the Rumble in the Jungle heavyweight boxing championship match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in October 1974. The film was made from archival footage; other footage shot at the time focusing on the fight was edited to form the film When We Were Kings.
The film is a sub-story to Kirikou and the Sorceress rather than a straight sequel. The movie is set while Kirikou is still a child and Karaba is still a sorceress. Like Princes et princesses and Les Contes de la nuit, it is an anthology film comprising several episodic stories, each of them describing Kirikou's interactions with a different animals. It is however unique among Michel Ocelot's films, not only in that it is co-directed by Bénédicte Galup (who has previously worked with him as an animator) but also for each of the stories being written by a different person (in all other cases, Ocelot has been the sole writer and director of his films).
11 directors show their view on the terrorist attacks on the world trade center in New York.
A young African woman learns that finding love and happiness need not come at the sacrifice of one's identity in director Flora Gomes 2002 romantic musical My Voice. Young and beautiful, Vita (Fatou N'Diaye) decides to leave her home in West Africa to study in Paris. Before Vita leaves, her mother (Bia Gomes) nervously reminds her of the family curse stating that any female in their lineage who sings will be struck dead. Vita reassures her mother that she will do no such thing and leaves to begin her new life. Shortly after arriving in Paris, however, she meets and falls in love with a young French musician named Pierre (Jean-Christophe Dolle), who -- in a moment of romantic abandon -- convinces Vita to sing. Pierre's astonishment at Vita's obvious talent for music prompts him to convince her to record an album, which she does but almost immediately regrets upon remembering her promise to her mother about the curse.
A rare documentary made in Brussels in the early nineties collecting witnesses on how local and Congolese musicians enriched each other including internationally known stars such as Manu Dibango, Toots Tielemans, Vaya Con Dios, Phillippe Catherine, Victor Laszlo, Zap Mama...
A young hustler tries to get drug money by selling a boy to a middle-aged man; his plans are disrupted when the kid dies.
Greg Morris stars as Red Salter, an American jazz musician working in Nigeria. Red is trying to make time with Leah Matanzima (Ruby Dee), who is working with a group of rebels trying to liberate the fictional nation of Fahari. Leah recruits Red to help smuggle Ernest Motapo (Ossie Davis), the leader of the revolutionary army, out of Nigeria and into Fahari. Motapo is being hunted by mercenary Ben Amed (Tom Aldredge), who has been hired by a powerful corporation that has been oppressing the people of Fahari, and stripping the nation of its natural resources. Though he is reluctant to get too heavily involved, Red soon finds himself fighting along with Motapo and the rebels to liberate their homeland from its colonialist oppressors.
