Discoveries from Bermuda World Cinema

A pair of young vacationers are involved in a dangerous conflict with treasure hunters when they discover a way into a deadly wreck in Bermuda waters.

Biography of the iconic groundbreaking athlete Clyde Best, the Black football superstar in the modern TV Era in England and legend of the North America Soccer League.

Decoding Thoughts is a ten-minute behind the scenes mini-documentary following the creation of Thoughts Become Things, a six-minute short poetry film rooted in the Bermudian Gombey tradition. The documentary explores how a team of Bermudian creatives built a work of poetic fiction authentically grounded in oral history, featuring candid interviews with the filmmakers, Gombey captains from several of Bermuda's active troupes speaking about the tradition and its future, and a Gombey mother who reflects on raising her sons inside a living cultural practice. Decoding Thoughts reveals the creative process, the cultural collaboration, and the community at the heart of the project.

An in-depth look into the isolated sport of Motocross in the much more isolated island of Bermuda.

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

During a robbery at a petrol station in town, one of the accomplices is shot dead. The other, Samba Traoré, flees with the loot: a suitcase full of banknotes. After years away, he returns to his native village. Life has gone on as usual, and Saratou is as beautiful as he remembers her. Director Idrissa Ouedraogo paints a portrait of a man haunted by his past, trying to rebuild his life and start afresh. But past mistakes never stay buried for long.

Jyire holds a motocross race in his hometown, where he must adhere to the park’s restrictions and drown out the public’s concern.

Life in the African country of Mali in the 1990s is vividly highlighted in this mild drama. In the story, a young forest ranger who sees that his work holds the key to the future of his country (through reforestation) is disgusted at the short-sighted, money-grubbing ways of his superiors. He has a much better relationship with local villagers than with his agency's bosses. As the movie opens, the villagers are preparing to hold a hunting ceremony but are not sure whether they will do it the old fashioned way, with a bonfire, or will obey a government decree that open fires are too dangerous. There is a lot of sexual teasing between the villagers, including some harmless horseplay. For instance, when a man whispers another woman's name in his sleep, his wife pours water into his ear in revenge.

Faro is a real goddess of a real tribe (the Bamana) in the West African country of Mali. In a landlocked country like Mali, covered in part by the Sahara Desert, water is a resource that can never be taken for granted. The Bamana village in Faro: Goddess of the Waters not only sits on a riverbank, but also depends for much of its food on fish from the river. Faro is the dominant character in this film, the unseen force for which all action takes place. (c) Ferdy on Films [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Kaya Maghan, the despotic king of Wagadou, follows the instructions of his priest by ordering the religious sacrifice to the Python God of Sia Yatabaree, the virgin daughter of a notable family. A gift of gold equivalent to Sia’s weight is given to her family as compensation for surrendering their daughter for the sacrifice. However, Sia runs away and finds shelter in the home of a mad prophet who has railed against the king. The king orders his top general to locate Sia, but the general is conflicted since Sia was engaged to marry his nephew, Mamadi, who is in battle on behalf of the kingdom. Mamadi returns and joins his uncle to do battle against the Python God. - Wikipedia, accessed 31 July 2021

Two women rebel against the traditions of a village society.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has been called a geological scandal due to its mineral rich soil. Unfortunately, those minerals, necessary to sustain today's technology, are funding the deadliest war since WWII.

Join a young Bermudian Gombey on a breathtaking journey as he encounters his ancestors in a tale that is as gripping as it is mystical. The Gombey is a masked performance tradition rooted in African, Native American and Bermudian ancestry that has been part of Bermuda's cultural identity for centuries. This poetic six-minute short film captures the essence of the Bermuda Gombey and Bermudian culture in a way never seen before, weaving spoken word poetry with dreamlike visuals to explore themes of ancestry, identity and spiritual guidance

Two Malian teenagers, Bah and Batrou, from different backgrounds, meet at secondary school. Bah is the descendent of a great tribal chieftain. Batrous father, a provincial military governor, represents the new ruling power. The two teenagers are part of a generation that rejects the established order and challenges the society in which they live.

A young manager of a factory encounters a man walking along a road who says his family traditionally are servants to the manager's family. The manager offers him a job, and as he watches out for the other man's welfare, begins to see how the company mistreats its workers. The manager is challenged between his ethics and the pressure from others to protect his own interests as dire problems surface at the factory

An examination of a decade of race riots between 1968 and 1977, alongside a triangle of colonial influences: Bermuda, Great Britain, and the USA.

A Westernized filmmaker, Issa, is a polygamist whose third wife Mimi is a doctor and high-profile health minister. Accustomed to a certain degree of empowerment and independence from her husband (deciding to stay in her own house instead of moving into his household), Mimi carries on a not-too-subtle affair with the married Abba, a fishmonger who sends her a tell-tale case of fish after each encounter as a token of his affection. Confronted by Issa with his suspicions of infidelity after he finds Abba in the courtyard, Mimi decides to file for divorce, a move that soon brings on a new set of complications, as relatives plead for reconciliation to avoid the shame, Issa's second wife increasingly resents the attention paid to Mimi, and Abba's wife begins to grow suspicious of Mimi's role in her husband's life.

A young mute woman is raped and becomes pregnant, with disastrous consequences within her family. The film also sketches the social/economic situation in urban Mali in the 1970s, particularly in relation to the treatment of women.

Errol Williams' last film is an homage to the Bermuda civil rights activist Kingsley Tweed - carpenter, preacher, and key figure in the desegregation of Bermuda following the boycott of public theatres in 1959. The documentary follows Tweed's return to the island after forty years living abroad. [Darrell Varga]

In 1918, Maria José Rebello from the state of Bahia applied for the national admission exam for the diplomatic career, a fact that left much of society astonished. Setting a precedent as the first woman to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria began a 100-year journey for Brazilian women in diplomacy.

Imagine finding a pterodactyl alive and nesting on an obscure island. Rare Bird is the true story of a 15-year-old boy who helped find a bird believed extinct and solve the mystery of its existence. Like the myth of the phoenix, the Cahow bird is resurrected on the island paradise of Bermuda at the dawn of its development, returning to teach humanity an important lesson in perseverance. Threatened by manmade development, invasive species, and the pesticide DDT, the Cahow has been on the brink of extinction for over 4 centuries .This against all odds story about a man, a ghost bird and a struggle for survival takes a dramatic turn, when the bird faces a greater threat: global warming. Ravaged by a recent hurricane what will David and his successor Jeremy do to save the species once again from oblivion? Rare Bird is their tale of hope, inspiration and commitment to the future of all species.

Minata, 17, dreams that she is being offered in marriage to old Modi, a wealthy businessman in the village, in exchange for a debt owed by her uncle. In the dream, her boyfriend Kyassou, who is only interested in sex, abandons her to go to the city. Minata has reached the end of her descent into hell.

Bamako. Several women are illegally evicted from their home in 2008. Their brother, Souleymane Cissé, takes up his camera to look back at his childhood and family history in a country heading for war despite a tradition of tolerance.

Deep in Mali, on the edge of the Sahel Desert, lies the peaceful city of Gao—a quiet way station for passersby with their eyes set on Europe in hopes of opportunity, safety and a better future.

The story centers on a devout Muslim, Faco, who tries to run his two-wife household in the traditional way. The trouble begins when his ambitious younger son, Kalifa lapses and gets involved with his older brother's hoodlum friends. Kalifa then gives them his money and soon loses his job. The city has a curfew at night and only those with a highly-prized identity card are allowed out. Police rigorously patrol the streets in search of whores and people without cards. One homeless, unemployed man, Oussou, decides to earn the card by becoming a stoolie for the cops, and snitches on Kalifa's older brother, precipitating a police raid of Faco's home that results in their finding a cache of illegal drugs. Faco and the older son are both stripped naked and thrown in jail. Suddenly Faco finds himself brutalized and humiliated by his Muslim brothers. Meanwhile, the dark-skinned daughter of a white storekeeper, with a lust for black hookers, sets off to find her real mother.

In this prequel to Hustlerz Paradise, Sincere is taking care of his Cancer stricken mother and when her insurance maxes out Sincere is willing to go through HELL for the woman he LOVES in order to make things RIGHT.

Set in the 17th century in a small cave-dwelling village in northeastern Mali, the film follows Yamio — a woman who, unable to conceive after 10 years of marriage and shamed by the fertility of her husband's second wife — throws herself off a cliff. When she miraculously lands without suffering any harm, she wanders in exile, finally taking refuge in Barkomo, a kingdom that has fallen on hard times. When she discovers that she is pregnant with a miracle child, she has the chance to change the fortunes of everyone around her.