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note: click on film graphics to see larger versions
Director: Sozimo Bulbul
From: Brazil
Year: 1988  Minutes: 150
Language: Portuguese with English Subtitles
Genre: documentary
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Aboliçao is a startling look at the racial situation of Black Brazilians in contemporary Brazil. The director asks the following question to Black Brazilians from diverse walks of life -- musicians, politicians, activists, people in government, ambassadors, social workers, sport stars, actors, street kids, farmers, etc… -- “We are celebrating 100 years since the abolition of slavery in Brazil, what does the abolition of slavery mean to you?”… Divided in sections addressing political, economic, social and cultural issues, Aboliçao contributed to a new analysis of the Black experience in Brazil. An indispensable title to have in a library for the study of the Black presence in Latin America.
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DVD sale: $245
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Director: Geraldo Santos Pereira
From: Brazil
Year: 2001 Minutes: 100
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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Set in 19th century Brazil - at a time when slavery was still at the foundation of the Latin American economy - this fascinating historical drama is loosely based on the life of Black sculptor Antonio Francisco Lisboa "Aleijadinho," one of the greatest sculptors of Latin America.
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35mm rental: $250
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Rafael Deugenio
From: Uruguay
Year: 1993 Minutes: 16
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: docu-drama
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More than two hundred years ago, there was an influx into Uruguay of slaves from Africa whom, after being freed, continued to make up the poorest and most marginalized strata in society. Fernado Nunez, a black man, a musician, and a maker of drums, sees himself as the heir to "Candombe", an important social and cultural legacy from his slave forefathers. The official history and culture of Uruguay, on the other hand, which has never acknowledged this contribution to the degree which it deserves, continues to marginalize expressions of black culture. Fernando Nunez and his friends from the Barrio Sur back street quarter of Montevideo have decided to fight to keep these important cultural roots alive in the consciousness of the Uruguayan people.
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16mm rental: $145
DVD sale: $245 bonus title in Adios Momo
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Director: Joel Zito Araujo
From: Brazil
Year: 2000 Minutes: 92
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles
Genre: documentary
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A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of Black actors in Brazilian television "soaps." Based on
his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyzes race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Black people's identity-forming processes.
"As a sociological dissection on how popular entertainment can shape racial prejudice and help to build racial justice, 'Denying Brazil' is a strong and significant work of intelligence." - Phil Hall, Filmthreat
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35mm rental: $250
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Joel Zito Araujo
From: Brazil
Year: 1997 Minutes: 38
Language: Portugues
with English subtitles
Genre: documentary
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On March 13, 1992, Vicente Francisco do Espirito Santo, a Black Brazilian who worked in a government-owned electricity company, was fired from his job. It did not take long for him to realize that his dismissal was directly linked to his skin color. Encouraged by his union and a strong Black empowerment movement, he began a judicial process which he won, and as a result was reinstated in his former position. This informative documentary about an unknown victory illustrates how the courts of Brazil did recognize the company's prejudice and racism in a country where such realities are usually dismissed as atypical.
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DVD sale: $145
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Director: Leonardo Ricagni
From: Uruguay
Year: 2005 Minutes: 100
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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| Obdulio is an 11-year-old Afro-Uruguayan boy who lives with his grandmother and sells newspapers for a living while he cannot read or write. Obdulio is not interested in going to school until he finds out that the night watchman of the newspaper's office is a charismatic magical "Maestro" who not only introduces him to the world of literacy but also teaches him the real meaning of life through the lyrics of the "Murgas" (Carnival Pierrots) during the mythical nights of the irreverent and provocative Uruguayan carnival.
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35mm rental: $250
DVD sale: $245
DVD bonus film: Candombe
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Hands
of God
Director: Delia Ackerman
From: Peru
Year: 2004 Minutes: 54
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
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The stunning dexterity and mastery of famous Afro-Peruvian
percussionist Julio "Chocolate" Algendones
are on display in this affectionate documentary
about the great master. Afro-Peruvian music is rooted
in multiples rhythms coming from Africa. Mixing
the traditional and the contemporary, from cajón
to Jazz, Chocolate composed and played many music
styles, taught all over the world and contributed
to the creative development of numerous artists
including the dance group Peru Negro.
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VHS sale: $90
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Flavio Leandro
From: Brazil
Year: 1995 Minutes: 12
Language: silent
Genre: drama
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| In 1993, death squads opened fire on a group of sleeping street children camped on the steps of a cathedral in Rio de Janeiro’s central financial district, killing six. This event, later called the Candelaria massacre, is vividly depicted in this short film about the plight of street children in Brazil. |
35mm rental: $120
DVD sale: $145
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Director: Octavio Cortazar
From: Martinique/Cuba
Year: 1992 Minutes: 52
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: docu-drama
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A fascinating film on the rhythmic dance genre known as Rumba, La Ultima Rumba de Papa Montero dances around the life of Papa Montero, one of the famous rumberos of Cuba, assassinated during carnival. A discovery of Cuban traditions and every day life told through beautiful images, sensual music and dance. The use of Afro-Cuban mythology is the force behind the characters as orishas guide the characters' fate.
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DVD sale: $295 Part of 2-set DVD Afro-Cuba: Yesterday and Today which also includes Sara Gomez: An Afro-Cuban Filmmaker.
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Director: Claudette Coulanges
From: Haiti/Germany
Year: 1999 Minutes: 60
Language: Creole and French with English subtitles
Genre: documentary
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Looking for Life introduces the viewer to two women, Anne-Rose and Rosemene, who each one has their own particular way of battling through life. The former makes lunches in a factory yard in Port-au-Prince and sells her meals to the factory workers; the latter is employed in the same factory as a production worker making pullovers and T-shirts. Every day she buys her midday meal on credit from Anne-Rose. Through the connection between these two women the film shows part of their daily work and the constant battle for survival that they lead together with other women in Haiti. Going beyond this, however the film demonstrates the extent to which the importation of North American goods has brought about the collapse of Haitian regional production and ruined Haiti's economy. The connection between the two topics of the film reveals the significant role that Haitian women of today play in an economy that has been bled dry.
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16mm rental: $250
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Paul Gachot
From: Brazil/Switzerland
Year: 2005 Minutes: 82
Language: Portuguese with English subtitles
Genre: Musical Documentary |
In his captivating film, Georges Gachot invites us to enter the universe of Maria Bethania, the famous Brazilian singer. Narrated by Bethania herself, the film not only gives us an insight into the intimate sphere of Maria Bethania's creative process, but focuses on the history of Brazilian music. First a muse of the so-called counter culture, and then the queen of romantic ballads, Maria Bethania chronicles her musical life experience in relation to Brazilian society's development. In addition to this, filmmaker Gachot gathers together a fantastic ensemble of contributors including Gilberto Gil, Nana Caymmi, Miucha, Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso, all of them witnesses and participants to some of the greatest music history of our time. |
video sale: $125
DVD sale: $245
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Director: Sergio Giral
From: Cuba
Year: 1979 Minutes: 95
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Historical Drama
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Maluala takes us into a palenque, a settlement of escaped slaves hidden somewhere in Cuba's eastern mountains, where discord is sown between black "kings" by clever subversives working for the Spanish government.
"Sergio Giral is the best known of the Black Cuban directors and his previous films were historical observations of the period of slavery in Cuba, the gradual rise of rebellion against colonial traditions, and the ultimate freedom that resulted. Maluala is the most striking addition to this genre. The action takes place during the last century in the region of Maluala. Gallo, the black chieftain, together with his cohort, Coba, present a petition for land and liberty to the colonial government. Governor Escudero offers liberty if the rebellious villages will be dismantled and their men offer themselves in surrender. He promises that they will be freed shortly thereafter. Three chieftains agree, but Gallo and Coba refuse…. Giral has mounted Maluala with colorful ritual and acting. Samuel Claxton, as Gallo, is highly stylized in the heroic tradition. It is an absorbing adventure film wrought from historical events which appear violent, but Giral constantly implants into every image the necessity for unity among people in order to combat man's seemingly casual desire to subjugate mankind, in the struggle for power and undefined ambition." ~ San Francisco Film Festival, 1980
“The historically lucid intrigues of Maluala (1979), where the Afrocentric leadership of fugitive palenque communities is pitted against each other COINTELPRO-style by Spanish colonists, is one of those Cuban films that were forged in a righteous, red-hot ferment but still found the courage and wit to ask questions about the society around them.”
~ Gary Dauphin, The Village Voice
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video sale: $90
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Mario Handler
From: Venezuela
Year: 1989 Minutes: 82
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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The action takes place in a village on the Venezuelan coast, a place of fishermen and big haciendas. Jose Ramon, son of a white aristocrat and a humble black fisher-women, is trying to define his own identity while dealing with social and sexual conflicts, power, culture, the law, and the impossible relationship he has with both his parents.
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35mm rental: $250
video sale: $90
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Paulo Cezar Saraceni
From: Brazil
Year: 1988 Minutes: 100
Language: Portuguese w/ English Subtitles
Genre: drama
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The name ‘Natal da Portela’ is historically attached to the cultural identity of Brazil. Natal da Portela created the first escola de samba in Rio de Janeiro. The schools of samba are the soul of carnival in Brazil and major reservoirs of Afro-Brazilian culture. The film depicts the life of Natal da Portela as a young man from the favelas--the slums of the northern part of Rio de Janeiro--up to the creation of “la Portela”, the school of samba he created. The principal role played by Milton Goncalves, one of the major Black actors in Brazil, gives the story an authentic flavor rarely seen in films portraying the contemporary life of Black people in Brazil. This is a film filled with joy, music and laughter. “Natal da Portela” is also a film that narrates the story of contemporary Brazil and the legacy of African people in that country. Several other major actors enrich the story, Zeze Mota well known for her role in “Quilombo” and the dean of Black Brazilian actors, the great Grande Otello much remembered for his major role in Rio Zona Norte and Macunaima just to mention a few titles.
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35mm rental: $250
video sale: $90
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Sergio Giral
From: Cuba
Year: 1986 Minutes: 96
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: drama
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Placido portraits the dramatic story of Gabriel de la Concepcio Valdes (Placido), a mulatto Cuban poet accused of leading a conspiracy against the Spanish colonial government. Preoccupied by the development of Afro-Hispanic artist and craftsmen of the mid XIX century, Placido was executed after living a short and controversial life as a man between two races and between a cruel reality and a dream of freedom.
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DVD sale: $195
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Sara Gomez: An Afro-Cuban Filmmaker
Director: Alessandra Muller
From: Cuba/Switzerland
Year: 2005 Minutes: 76
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
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Sara Gomez: An Afro-Cuban Filmmaker is a rich, multilayered documentary about Afro-Cuban director Sarah Gomez. Born in 1943, she studied literature, piano, and Afro-Cuban ethnography before becoming the first female Cuban filmmaker. A woman of great intelligence, independence and generosity, she was a revolutionary filmmaker with intersecting concerns about the Afro-Cuban community and the value of its cultural traditions, women's issues, and the treatment of the marginalized sectors of society. Through archival footage of her works and interviews with her children and husband Germinal Hernandez, cast members of her best-know film De cierta manera,as well as colleagues and friends, we get closer to a filmmaker who invented new landscapes and brought together opposite worlds.
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VHS sale: $90
DVD sale: $295 Part of 2-set DVD Afro-Cuba: Yesterday and Today which also includes The last Rumba of Papa Montero.
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Director: Zozimo Bulbul
From: Brazil
Year: 1974 Minutes: 8
Language: silent
Genre: drama
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This short film on the legacy of culture and survival bestowed by enslaved Africans brought to the Americas features the music of John Coltrane.
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16mm rental: $150
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Director: Mark Dixon
From: Peru/Belgium
Year: 2003 Minutes: 54
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Musical documentary
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Susana Baca is not only a champion in the performance and preservation of Afro-Peruvian heritage, but also an elegant singer whose shimmering voice sings of love, loss and life. Susana and her husband Ricardo Pereira have founded the Instituto Negrocontinuo “Black Continuum” in Lima, a spirited facility for the exploration, expression, and creation of Black Peruvian culture. While Baca has dedicated herself to researching and performing virtually all forms of Afro-Peruvian folklore, it is the lando that has become her trademark. This slow to mid-tempo, highly evocative mix of Spanish, Indigenous and African rhythms has become what the son is to Cuba, or the samba to Brazil--the lando is the sound of Black Peru.
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video sale: $90
DVD sale: $195
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Director: Sons of Benkos
From: Colombia/France
Year: 2003 Minutes: 52
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Genre: Documentary
Director: Silva Lucas
Official selection, African Diaspora
Film Festival 2006.
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An entertaining documentary that explores the African culture of Colombia through music. The film presents the music of the Sons of Benkos, one of the most important Black leaders in the fight for freedom during the times of slavery in Colombia. The film also shows the evolution of Afro-Colombian music over time through the fusion of Cuban and contemporary African rhythms with traditional Afro-Colombian music.
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DVD sale: $195
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