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Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Login
Facebook
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Films
19 Films
shorter than 40 minutes
x
Region
“West Africa”
x
films with a digital version
10
short films
19
x
films available on demand
2
Region
British-Irish Isles
1
Scandinavia
1
West Africa
19
x
Western Europe
1
Country
Burkina Faso
1
Cameroon
1
Cape Verde
1
Denmark
1
Ghana
3
Guinea-Bissau
1
Nigeria
8
Norway
1
Senegal
1
Sierra Leone
2
Togo
2
United Kingdom
1
Keywords
Agriculture / Farming
1
Alternative culture
1
Archival material / Museum displays
3
Art / Artists / Artisans
3
Children / Young people
1
Colonialism / Postcolonialism
1
Dance / Theatre / Performance
3
Everyday Life
1
Festivals / Carnival
2
Film / Photography / Mass media
1
Gender Role and Identity
1
Health / Health care / Healing
1
History
2
Labour
1
Material Culture
2
Migration
2
Music / Ethnomusicology
3
Personal Narrative
1
Possession
2
Race / Racism / Antiracism
1
Reflexivity
1
Religion / Belief / Faith
4
Reproduction (biology)
1
Ritual
6
Social Conflict
2
Trade
1
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
2
Directors
Asare-Nyako, Afua
1
Basu, Paul
1
Beier, Ulli
1
Bradbury, Ray
1
Hanson, Kieran
1
Harper, Peggy
2
Hinckley, Priscilla
1
Horton, Robin
1
LaPin, Deirdre
1
Nicolau, João
1
Pedrosa, Patrícia
1
Prince, Raymond
1
Saltman, Carlyn
2
Sarabi, Abtin
1
Schädler, Natalie
1
Schäuble, Michaela
1
Speed, Frank
7
Thomas Allen, Christopher
1
Visser, Mara Lin
1
Waage, Trond
1
Series
Decolonising Shorts
1
Granada Center for Visual Anthropology Student Film
6
Shorts collection 2
1
not set
11
Country of production
Cameroon
1
France
1
Netherlands
1
Nigeria
6
Norway
1
United Kingdom
13
United States
2
not set
1
Year of production
1963
2
1964
1
1966
1
1970
1
1975
1
1984
1
1990
1
1997
1
1999
1
2000
1
2001
1
2008
1
2010
1
2011
1
2016
2
2018
1
2020
1
Film list
Benin Kingship Rituals
1963
20
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Ray Bradbury
.
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
West Africa
Ritual
Dance / Theatre / Performance
History
The Blooms of Benjeli: Technology and Gender in West African Ironmaking
1997
29
‘
Directed by
Carlyn Saltman
.
The filmmaker and two historians went into the village of Banjeli in 1985 to recreate for the film the traditional iron smelting techniques (which are no longer used) of the area. By focusing on the
West Africa
Art / Artists / Artisans
Archival material / Museum displays
History
Material Culture
Changes
2010
30
‘
Directed by
Afua Asare-Nyako
.
Kwabena wants to move back to Ghana, the country he left more than 30 years ago. This film shows one of the many journeys that he has to take in preparation for his return. It explores the motives
West Africa
Western Europe
Migration
Chantal’s Choice
1990
30
‘
Directed by
Priscilla Hinckley
Carlyn Saltman
.
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.
West Africa
Dance / Theatre / Performance
Children / Young people
Reproduction (biology)
Duminea: A Festival for the Water Spirits
1966
20
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Robin Horton
.
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
West Africa
Ritual
Possession
Faces Voices
2018
18
‘
Directed by
Paul Basu
Christopher Thomas Allen
.
The film complicates any simple reading of a colonial photographic archive from Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone that was collected between 1909 and 1915. Through a collaborative creative effort
West Africa
British-Irish Isles
Archival material / Museum displays
Colonialism / Postcolonialism
Race / Racism / Antiracism
Gelede: A Yoruba Masquerade
1970
30
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Peggy Harper
.
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
West Africa
Gender Role and Identity
Ritual
Festivals / Carnival
Social Conflict
Jungle Cat
2000
29
‘
Directed by
Natalie Schädler
.
In search of the righteous way of living, the Liberian rapper CyLover, aka as ‘Jungle Cat’ wants to make music for his people. Now based in Ghana, the big chance to finish his first album approaches
West Africa
Music / Ethnomusicology
Kwagh Hir
1975
30
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Peggy Harper
.
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
West Africa
Festivals / Carnival
Dance / Theatre / Performance
Ritual
Land Lot S7
2020
28
‘
Directed by
Abtin Sarabi
.
Following sugar cane field workers in Senegal as they chop and burn their way through seemingly endless fields, this poetic film takes an unconventional approach to understanding the gruelling work
West Africa
Labour
Agriculture / Farming
Living with Boko Haram
2016
37
‘
Special Interest
Directed by
Trond Waage
.
January 2015. Boko Haram’s violent insurgency is approaching Mogdé, on the Nigerian/Cameroonian border, where Antoniette lives. Just outside Oslo, Norway, lives her son Vakote, worried and afraid
West Africa
Scandinavia
Religion / Belief / Faith
Social Conflict
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
Migration
New Images
1964
27
‘
Directed by
Ulli Beier
Frank Speed
.
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
West Africa
Art / Artists / Artisans
Religion / Belief / Faith
Archival material / Museum displays
Shooting Freetown
2011
29
‘
Directed by
Kieran Hanson
.
A decade since Sierra Leone’s devastating civil war, from the ashes rises a new dawn of creativity in audio-visual media. Inspired by Jean Rouch’s ‘shared anthropology’ and ‘ethno-fiction’,
West Africa
Film / Photography / Mass media
War / Conflict / Reconciliation
Reflexivity
Sons of the Moon
1984
25
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Deirdre LaPin
.
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
West Africa
Religion / Belief / Faith
Music / Ethnomusicology
Everyday Life
Ritual
Thanks Be to God
2008
31
‘
Directed by
Patrícia Pedrosa
.
Four Christian women work and live in a Muslim and patriarchic world. The ‘Sisters of the Consolata Missionaries’ are building a new library in Empada, a small village in the south of
West Africa
Religion / Belief / Faith
Unity: Dress-scapes of Accra
2016
37
‘
Directed by
Mara Lin Visser
.
This is a film about African fashion in the capital of Ghana. African printed fabrics seem to making a comeback in the fashion system of Accra. While following Allan, a fashion designer and his wife
West Africa
Trade
Material Culture
Art / Artists / Artisans
Usch in the Bush
2001
32
‘
Directed by
Michaela Schäuble
.
In the 1980s Ursula Heimer leaves behind her husband and children in Germany and goes to live in the African bush. We meet her seventeen years later in a tiny village in Togo, where she has been
West Africa
Personal Narrative
Alternative culture
Were Ni! He is a Madman
1963
30
‘
Directed by
Frank Speed
Raymond Prince
.
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
West Africa
Health / Health care / Healing
Ritual
Possession
You Can’t Live With Your Mouth Shut
1999
29
‘
Directed by
João Nicolau
.
Cape Verde is an archipelago situated 500km off the West Coast of Africa. On the island of Santiago lives Mano Mendi, the last player of cimboa, a one-string violin used to accompany the traditional
West Africa
Music / Ethnomusicology