Noah Tsika

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Articles

The dreamer

Jul 5, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Noah Tsika

In the recent publication of the decennial Sight & Sound Top 250 Greatest Films of All Time list, two African films were placed within the top 100. Ousmane Sembéne’s La Noire De/Black Girl landed in the 95th spot and Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki earned the highest rank at 65. Of the two, Sembéne is the most visible of all African filmmakers and despite the prominence of Touki Bouki, very little is known about the director of one of Africa’s most famous and accomplished films.
Stories untold

Jun 17, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Amber Sweat |Noah Tsika

Two projects that Ousmane Sembène left unfinished were a biopic on Samory Touré, the heroic leader of African resistance to French occupation in 19th century West Africa, and a cinematic version of his very successful novel, God’s Bits of Wood, which documented the long, historic strike by African workers of the Dakar-Niger railroad line: a key infrastructure in the French colonial economy from 1904 that provided the perfect breeding ground for nationalist demands that led to independence for...
Heeding the call

Jun 6, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Sara Hanaburgh |Noah Tsika |Elliot Ross |Sean Jacobs

Historically, famous international film festivals have been notoriously difficult for African filmmakers to find success in. Festival juries in the Global North carry inherited preconceptions about Africans and our cinema, obstructing newer perspectives from entering the global landscape. These biases run through many facets of the international film industry, so any African film with a considerable budget that makes it to an international stage with its integrity intact feels like a miracle.
Corruption kills?

Jun 5, 2024 | africasacountry.com | William Shoki |Michael Smith |Michaël Smith |Noah Tsika |Benjamin Fogel

Nigeria has a corruption problem—this is hardly breaking news. Less often acknowledged, however, is the fact that Nigeria has long had a vibrant and sometimes powerful anti-corruption movement. What are the origins of this movement? What has it achieved? Can it be rescued from the perennial limitations of anti-corruption (anti-)politics identified elsewhere in Africa and across the world?
Being young and African in elite America

Mar 13, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Arthur Musah |Noah Tsika |William Shoki |Louis Philippe Romer

NT Brief Tender Light follows MIT students from admission to graduation and beyond. When was the film shot? AM From 2011 until 2018. 2018 was the last time I filmed with any of the participants. And then some of the Ghana protest stuff [was filmed] in 2021. NT You also commissioned some video recordings from the participants. Or did they simply volunteer their video recordings?
Henry Kissinger’s Angola

Nov 30, 2023 | africasacountry.com | Gerald Horne |Noah Tsika |Marissa Moorman

For Ronald Reagan and a great many Americans, the arrival of Cuban troops in Angola in 1975 epitomized the poisoned fruit of détente. The way they saw it, the Soviets had dared for the first time to engage in a massive military intervention in Africa; they had pushed their Cuban proxies forward; and they had found this act of naked aggression both painless and profitable. President Ford and Kissinger had been unable to devise an effective response.
Loving, living, and communal duty

Oct 19, 2023 | africasacountry.com | Noah Tsika |Dylan Valley

In a feat of desperation and fear, a young Banel (Khady Mane) drags her husband, Adama (Mamadou Diallo), by the hand, under a blazing Sahelian sun, toward mountains of sand. Hidden underneath are the structural bones of once-abandoned houses. On arrival, Banel forces Adama into the sand and commands him to dig. With no tools around them, she tells him to use his hands. “Dig! Dig! Dig!” she yells at him, her voice straining with every utterance of the word. “Dig,” she tells him.
Where the spirits conquer her

Jan 30, 2023 | africasacountry.com | Noah Tsika

Since the 1970s, Safi Faye has displayed her talents as a filmmaker, anthropologist, and ethnologist. Her films draw upon rural life and realities, tackling issues faced daily by farmers as in Kaddu Beykat. In 1990, Faye began to explore fiction when she began creating Mossane, her seminal work. She released the film in 1996 after a long battle with the French producers of the film. Faye had to wait six years to gain legal rights over her own film.