Discoveries from Togo World Cinema

Between pain, anger and resilience, Sifa, a 14-year-old orphan, stands up against injustice to defend her father's memory and preserve his legacy.

What is the role of an ethnographic filmmaker as an outsider and student of a culture? Is it about representing, demonstrating, and reflecting or exposing, participating, and transposing? Although these are not binary terms of the historic discussions in anthropology, they share a lot to be experimented through shared cine-anthropology and sensory multimodal ethnography.

Women and children separating and packing tobacco, in fields sprayed by pesticides while they were working.

Recording a 24-hour period throughout every country in the world, we explore a greater diversity of perspectives than ever seen before on screen. We follow characters and events that evolve throughout the day, interspersed with expansive global montages that explore the progression of life from birth, to death, to birth again. In the end, despite unprecedented challenges and tragedies throughout the world, we are reminded that every day we are alive there is hope and a choice to see a better future together. Founded in 2008, it set out to explore our planet's identity and challenges in an attempt to answer the question: Who are we?

Following in the footsteps of the Hamburg film director Hans Schomburgk who travelled through the German colony of Togo from Lomé to the north with his companion and actress Meg Gehrts in 1913, Jürgen Ellinghaus screens the footage shot then at its locations in modern-day Togo. Schomburgk’s affirmative images show slave labour, humiliation and the arrogance of the colonial power. The material is contrasted by Gehrts’ romanticising diary entries and other colonial reports which often testify to a horrifying coldness.

Sarah Maldoror ou la nostalgie de l'utopie is a Togolese short documentary film directed by Anne-Laure Folly. It was released in 1999. The film is a tribute to Sarah Maldoror of Guadeloupe, who made the classic film Sambizanga (1972). The film documents the constant political struggle in all her work for liberty, her affirmation of her négritude to the world, and her campaign for recognition of black poets.

Every year the War Cemetery Memorial of Wahala in the former German colony of Togo (West Africa) hosts the 11th November Remembrance Day Ceremony in memory of the African colonial soldiers who died here in August 1914. But Wahala's history and its name point to another painful past. In 1903 the German colonial administration set up a "correctional settlement" by the Chra river where people considered to be an obstacle to colonial order were obliged to live. Wahala: a place where the voice of the ancients resonates with present day pictures.

An experimental poetic investigation of one of the world's largest e-waste recycling sites, Agbogbloshie, as a contact zone of complex global economic, social, power-political and technological processes.

When a tradeswoman discovers that the mayor (her husband) is going to demolish Mikoko's main market, she decides to do everything she can to stop him.

Akofa is a young unemployed graduate. The society she lives in is full of corruption and debauchery, but Akofa chooses an honest life. She formerly sold water to earn her and her sister's living, while Dela her classmate spends time with wealthy men. One day misfortune knocks at Akofa's door. Will she accept John's indecent proposal? Meanwhile, Akofa's younger sister Jacky's days are numbered.

This film follows Maria Esther, Jose Agrippino's partner, as she falls into a trance; the film takes place in the day-to-day setting of a room looking out over the beach and over the roofs of a house in North Africa.

Two childhood friends reunite 20 years later and decide to pursue their dream at the risk of losing their lives.

Set against the Festival of Black Divinities in Togo, this captivating documentary explores the origins, resilience, and contemporary relevance of African spiritual traditions before and beyond Christianity and Islam.

After graduating, Anita Nounyo was unable to find a job as a hydraulic engineer. To her father’s disappointment, she returns to her home village unemployed. There, Anita helps the local handyman Komlan to repair the well. She learns how the village community buys compost from the neighbouring community in exchange for part of their harvest. But the yields have been poor in recent years and people suffer from poverty. Anita develops a plan how both villages can help each other to get more water, more compost and more prosperity for everyone. If the plan worked out, maybe she could win back her father’s respect too....

Two unemployed slackers claim to be taking their time hunting for the perfect job, until suddenly they find themselves with no means of support and their search becomes a lot more urgent.

Grace is the president of Zogbeland's wife. She plans the murder of her husband to get the presidential throne

Six Scouts and Guides from France are heading to Togo, where they are joining forces with Togolese scouts to build a classroom. This documentary captures their human adventure and the cultural exchange that emerges at the heart of this solidarity project. Through the challenges of construction, a story of friendship, cooperation, and discovery unfolds between young people from two continents.

A tribute to the willingness, the effort and all that happens before resolution. A physical lawlessness that teases materiality, overthrows logic and acts as an ode to unseen forces and internal desire, celebrating how we are shaped by what we overcome, and how something challenging can lead to something beautiful.

The Lighting aims to revisit issues of discrimination rooted in technological development and image production. Three professional Togolese photographers explore how to use instruments to compensate for insufficient exposure while shooting dark skin tones. A leading software engineer, developing facial recognition algorithms at Taiwan's MediaTek, talks about how a newly-created camera algorithm is very popular on the African continent.

A tribute to the willingness, the effort and all that happens before resolution. A physical lawlessness that teases materiality, overthrows logic and acts as an ode to unseen forces and internal desire, celebrating how we are shaped by what we overcome, and how something challenging can lead to something beautiful.

This transcendent video performance incorporating the artist's body is an act of ritual and liberation. The mixing of political, sacral and also personal elements testify to a lively, critical and awakened spirit, which with its very own and unmistakable visual language holds a mirror of our society to the viewer.

A zoologist couple travels to West Africa to document some of the worlds deadliest snakes. Their expedition reveals a surprising similarity between handling deadly snakes and living in a healthy relationship.

Eleven-year-old Guénolé lives in a small village two hours from Lomé, Togo. He dreams of playing the piano. With the help of a Kapok Tree, he will manage to practice despite not having a piano.

Reflecting on ecological perils, this performance, incorporating the artist’s body, aims to raise awareness and imagine a more sustainable future. The work demonstrates the real impact climate change and pollution are having on a planetary scale. More than ever, art can be a beacon of hope, lighting the way and compelling us to act.

TBD - Need to watch it.

'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 of sacrifice and possession in communicating with spirits of ancestors and voodoo deities. Tradition and modernity are contrasted in this colourful documentary, which provides insight into healing practices of life and death.

Despite being forbidden to do so by her community and her husband, Ayélé secretly sends her daughter, Mofiala, to study in the city. Years later, having become a doctor and researcher in bacteriology, the young woman returns to her village, struck by an unknown epidemic.

A young girl lives in fear as the house servent of her abusive aunt.