Until it was conquered by the British in 1897, the city of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, was the centre of a powerful kingdom. Its rulers, the Obas of Benin, were mysterious, secluded figures who

Adolescents in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, create a play for their peers in Europe and the USA. They enact an African folktale about a girl who faces a painful dilemma because she is determined to stay in school.

The communal rituals of most villages of the Eastern Niger Delta focus on two great classes of spirits - the heroes and the water people. The heroes once lived with the men, founded their

Two young Afar girls, Fatuma (10) and Asya (13), show us their daily life in two different contexts of the Afar Region in Ethiopia. Both of them face hard challenges: finding an alternative way to

Among the Yoruba of Western Nigeria and Dahomey the Gelede cult honours the earth spirits, the ancestors and especially the Great Mother. The festival filmed here emphasises the status of women and

'The Guardian of the Forces' introduces the viewer to the world of Sikavi, a ‘fetish priest’ in Lome, Togo. He controls the spirits of several voodoos or gods. The film explores the significance

Four million Tiv people form the major culture of the Benue state of southern Nigeria. They are popularly known as the greatest democrats in Africa as their society is based on fraternal cooperation

The film is a brief description of life in a busy commercial centre that still depends upon and retains its ancient traditions. These are based on the history of the town which was founded on the

In isolated mountain hamlets in Nigeria’s Jos Plateau the Ngas have traditionally observed the movements of the moon in the night sky. The moon is a key symbol in Ngas cosmology, believed to

Nigerian writer Dul Johnson returns to Tarok land to observe the local death rituals and the record of the Tarok ways of dealing with grief and honoring departed. This film provides a rare and

This film tells with verve and a touch of self-irony the history of research on the Dogon since the famous 1931 expedition of Marcel Griaule. The film establishes the original expedition in the

This ethnopsychiatric film shows the management of psychiatric disorders by the Yoruba of Nigeria. There are two basic types of institutions to deal with psychiatric disorders. First there are

Ymako Teatri, a theatre company based in the Ivory Coast, uses street theatre to question some contemporary West African problems. Their originality consists in using the ‘invisible theatre’