Portal:African cinema/DYK

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Lupita Nyong'o

Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o made history as the first Black person to head the Berlin International Film Festival jury on the occasion of its 74th edition in February 2024. Commonly known as the Berlinale, it is among the most prestigious film festivals in the world.

The South African 2019 political documentary How to Steal a Country is being used in  German high schools to teach students about corruption. The film revolves around state capture in South Africa and revelations of alleged corruption scandals surrounding former President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.

Supa Team 4 is Netflix’s first original African animated series, now in its second season.  Taking place in a futuristic Lusaka, the Zambian series was created and co-executive-produced by Zambian writer Malenga Mulendema and produced by South African animation studio Triggerfish.

The video for the song "Take Me to Your Leader" by American rock band Incubus pays homage to The Gods Must Be Crazy, a 1980 South African comedy film that was the most successful South African film at the time. Set in Southern Africa, the film revolves around a hunter-gatherer of the Kalahari Desert whose tribe believes that a Coca-Cola bottle dropped from a plane is a gift from their gods.

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Draft:Portal:African cinema/DYK/41

• All the characters and all the sets in The Legend of the Sky Kingdom were made out of junk. It is the first full-length Zimbabwean animated film. The film has no opening or end credits.
• Souleymane Cissé shot the first full-length Malian feature, The Young Girl, in the Bambara language, the country's main indigenous language.
• Yeelen is the first African film to win a prize in the history of Cannes Film Festival when it won the Jury Prize in 1987.
• In 2008, Manouchka Kelly Labouba became the first woman in the history of Gabonese cinema to direct a fictional film with Le Divorce (2008).

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Rafiki a 2018 Kenyan film about a romance between two young women was banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board “due to its homosexual theme”. The film's director, Wanuri Kahiu, sued the government, and won, to allow the film to be screened and eligible to be submitted as Kenya's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Tug of War, set in the 1950s during the final years of British colonial Zanzibar is Tanzania’s 2022 Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film. It is its 2nd ever entry and its first in 21 years.
Djibouti-Canadian film director and screenwriter Lula Ali Ismaïl is the first woman from Djibouti to produce a film, the 2011 short Laan (Friends), earning her the nickname of "the first lady of the Djibouti cinema”. Her 2018 drama, Dhalinyaro (Youth), was also the first feature film in Djibouti cinema history.
Zimbabwean make-up artist Trefor Proud became the first African to win the Oscar in 2020 for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the movie Topsy-Turvey.

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Upon winning Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 Years a Slave in 2013, Lupita Nyong'o became only the second African actress to win the award, the first Kenyan actress to win an Oscar, and the first Mexican to win the award. She is also the fifteenth actress to win an Oscar for a film debut performance.

Lupita Nyong'o

A year after selling out in cinemas, the 2019 Mozambican crime film Redemption, directed by Mickey Fonseca, became the first Mozambique-made film to be featured on Netflix and the first film from a Portuguese-speaking African country in its catalogue.

During filming of the 2006 Chadian war film Dry Season in N'Djamena, the crew was attacked by rebel forces, causing production to temporarily shut down and almost be abandoned. Mahamat Saleh Haroun's film went on to win the Grand Special Jury Prize at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival, as well as eight other prizes at Venice and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.

After winning top prizes at festivals including FESPACO and Locarno International Film Festival for his films Guimba the Tyrant and Genesis, Malian film director Cheick Oumar Sissoko became Mali's Minister of Culture in 2004.

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Abderrahmane Sissako

Rafiki a 2018 Kenyan film about a romance between two women was banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board due to its homosexual theme.  The film's director, Wanuri Kahiu, sued the government, and won, to allow the film to be screened and become eligible to be submitted as Kenya's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 2015, Timbuktu directed by Abderrahmane Sissako became the first film by a Mauritanian director to win the César Award, considered the highest film honor in France. It won seven awards out of its eight nominations setting the record for being the African film with the most awards ever at the ceremony. It is also the first Mauritanian film to be nominated for an Oscar.

Djibouti-Canadian film director and screenwriter Lula Ali Ismaïl is the first woman from Djibouti to produce a film, earning her the nickname "the first lady of theDjibouti cinema”.

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Draft:Portal:African cinema/DYK/49

Genevieve Nnaji

The 2011 fantasy adventure drama Mirror Boy, written and directed by Obi Emelonye starring Genevieve Nnaji and Osita Iheme, was the first Nigerian film to secure a cinematic release in the United Kingdom with Odeon Cinemas, considered a landmark achievement for a Nollywood film.

The 1981 romantic drama, Love Brewed in the African Pot by Kwaw Ansah was the first independent Ghanaian film. It received popular and critical acclaim throughout English-speaking Africa and became the first Ghanian film to be adapted into a comic book.

Everyone’s Child (1996) directed by author and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga was the first feature film directed by a black Zimbabwean woman. Originally conceived as a training video for community-based orphan care programs in response to the explosive growth of AIDS orphans on the continent, it was determined that a feature film would have more of an impact in building awareness on the issue.

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