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Films:
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Education
For All: The Ugandan Experience
1999, 28 min
Country: Uganda
Studio: USAID and World Bank
Director: Cecilia Domeyko, Jack Jorgens
Language: English
REVIEW: The video examines how Uganda is striving
to improve quality and access in primary education. In 1997,
President Museveni announced that up to four children in every
family would be entitled to free primary education. While the
move toward universal primary education has opened up new opportunities
for millions of Ugandan children who could not afford school,
it has had a huge cost in terms of overcrowded classrooms and
fewer resources to go around. Uganda faces enormous challenges
as it takes on the dual task of improving quality and access
for all students.
Uganda's experience is illuminated by attention to the human
dimensions of education -- it looks at what the reform means
to Ugandan teachers, principals, pupils, and parents. Among
the characters you meet are: 14-year old Emmanuel, an AIDS orphan
who is struggling to get an education against all odds; teacher
Jumba Tamale, who has been teaching for years, but is getting
professional training for the very first time; and George Kaate,
an outreach tutor and supervisor who tirelessly pedals his bicycle
from school to school to help teachers improve their teaching
methods. |
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Everyone’s
Child
1996, 83 min
Country: Zimbabwe
Studio: Media for Development Trust with support from Overseas
Development Administration, PLAN International and the Anglo-American
Corporation
Director: Tsitsi Dangarembga
Language: English
REVIEW: Everyone's Child is the story of two
children's abrupt journey into a world of adult responsibility.
It is a story of love and of the triumph of human spirit in
the face of tragedy. Tamari and Itai are devastated following
the tragic death of both of their parents. As family and neighbors
turn their heads, the children are left with nothing. Frustrated
and despairing, Itai tries his luck in the big city, leaving
Tamari at home to fend for herself and their younger brother
and sister. For the children this is a time of fear and survival.
For the people around them it must become a question of compassion.
In the end it is only tragedy that can bridge the gulf of denial
between their two worlds and make the community realize that
these are everyone's children.
Awards: Best Script, Best Music & Best
Cinematography at the 1996 Southern Africa Film Festival, Zimbabwe;
FESPACO ’97 - FNUP Feature Film Prize, CLISS Population
& Development Prize; 1997 XII Black International Cinema,
Berlin - Best Film by a Black Filmmaker, NBPC Prized Pieces,
Runner-up, drama category.
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Facts
and Fiction
1995, 21 min
Country: Swaziland
Studio: Eye to Eye Productions
Director: David Max Brown
Language: English, Runyankole, Luganda
REVIEW: Many people have their own opinion
on family planning methods that they have formed from information
gathered from "not so well-informed" sources. This
video clearly tells us the various "modern" methods
available at clinics and centers around us. Animated illustrations
leave no room for doubt as to the advantages and disadvantages
of the various methods available. |
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Forgotten
Children: The Legacy of Poverty and AIDS in Africa
1999, 13 min
Country: South Africa
Director: Tanvir Bush
Language: English, French
REVIEW: About 20% of Zambia's population has
HIV / AIDS, and 1.5 million have already died of AIDS. Over
1 million Zambian children have lost one or both parents mostly
to AIDS. The video chronicles the lives of several children
surviving on the streets of Lusaka. Shot from the children's
point of view, the film highlights the boys' natural dignity
and resourcefulness. Their stories of dead parents and grandparents,
abusive relatives and the difficulties of survival are told
with no hint of self-pity. The video illustrates several potential
solutions and their limitations. |
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Guilty
&
The Moment
2001, 23 min
Country: South Africa
Director: Francois Verster and Siyabonga Makhatini
Language: Afrikaans, English and Zulu with English subtitles
REVIEW:
Guilty (Francois Verster, 15 minutes)
A short experimental film that looks at issues of blame, fidelity,
denial and guilt within the AIDS context. Starting with one
HIV+ couple, it follows the path of sexual encounters branching
ever outward. In this maze of relationships the inevitable question
of responsibility becomes blurred.
The Moment (Siyabonga Makhatini, 8 minutes)
It is the moment just before penetration...People from different
backgrounds share their most personal thoughts about courtship
and sexual behavior in this funny and honest film. |
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Heavy Traffic
2001, 28 min
Country: South Africa
Director: Kgomotso Matsunyane
Language: Sotho, Zulu and English with English subtitles
REVIEW: Shot in Soweto, Heavy Traffic shows
the lives of two very different funeral parlor operators and
the people who work for them. We meet Caps Pooney, who has been
in the business for 50 years, and Lulu Somthumsi-Mabusela, the
boss of one of many smaller operations which have proliferated
in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. Uncle Caps, Lulu and their
employees experience a busy week of cleaning bodies and looking
for more business. Then comes Saturday and at the cemetery traffic
is heavy. After each funeral, both our parties move fast. There
is another body to fetch and bury. |
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HIV/AIDS
Counseling: The Taso Experience
Country: Uganda
Studio: Small World Productions and TVE for The AIDS Support
Organization
Director:
REVIEW: The AIDS Support Organization (TASO)
was the first organized community-based response to the HIV
epidemic in Uganda. Founded in November 1987, TASO has since
provided counselling, care and support to tens of thousands
of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. Many TASO
staff and volunteers are themselves living with HIV/AIDS. They
embody the organization's commitment to "living positively
with AIDS.” The purpose of this video is to help train
volunteers and professionals in the attitudes and skills required
to become an HIV/AIDS counsellor. The video presents TASO's
approach to HIV/AIDS counselling through case studies of three
clients and the work of three experienced counsellors. "What
is counselling? It's a helping relationship - to help a person
help himself or herself." (Jane Malemwa, TASO cousellor)
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Ho Ea
Rona
&
Tsoga
2002, 25 min
Country: Lesotho / South Africa
Director: Dumisani Phakathi, Sesoth Media and Sechaba Ramotoai
Language: English, Sotho and Zulu with English subtitles
REVIEW:
Ho Ea Rona (We Are Going Forward) (Dumisani
Phakathi, Sesotho Media, 17 minutes, Lesotho)
Ho Ea Rona (We Are Going Forward) is a short film about four
friends: Thabiso was a national boxer; Thabo, known to his friends
as Kwasa Kwasa, is a DJ; Bimbo, a true intellectual, is a man
of short sentences; and Moalosi an AIDS activist. All four are
HIV+. They meet to reflect on their lives, to cry, to reminisce
- but also, most importantly, to laugh.
Tsoga (Sechaba Ramotoai, 8 minutes, South Africa)
A Soweto school made headlines after 70% of their students were
reported to have tested HIV+. Ignorance and fear became the
agents for discrimination. Years later, Joyce, an ex-student
shares her experiences of being raped as a young girl and suffering
discrimination after testing HIV positive. Having overcome the
challenges posed by her HIV status, she provides a source of
guidance and encouragement. |
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House Of
Love
2001, 26 min
Country: Namibia
Director: Cecil Moller
Language: Afrikaans with English subtitles
REVIEW: Surrounded by vast expanses of desert
and sea, the small Namibian harbor of Walvis Bay is the unlikely
setting in which filmmaker Cecil Moller explores the lives of
sex-workers. Dependent for their business on the brief visits
of foreign shipping trawlers to this remote port, he women give
revealing insights into the choices they have made and why they
have made them. Their conflicts to do with notions of love,
sex, sin and redemption become the main themes, while the threat
of HIV/AIDS hangs ominously in the background. |
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I Promise
Africa
2004, 160 min
Country: Kenya / United States of America
Studio: PBS
Director: Jerry Henry
Language: English
REVIEW: During September of 2001 filmmaker
Jerry Henry was commissioned by the organization Urgent Africa
to complete a documentary on the opening of the NIA Health and
Resource Center in the rural village of Majiwa in Kenya, Africa.
This clinic was built to facilitate the health care of orphans
with HIV/AIDS in the rural community. While in Kenya, he lived
with and documented the lives of a tribe of Moran warriors living
in Samburu. He witnessed HIV positive adults and children who
were dying from a disease they had no control over. Africa continues
to lose the fight against AIDS. Jerry Henry made I Promise Africa
to remember its beauty and cherish the children forever. |
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