As a young girl growing up in the African nation of Botswana, Precious Ramotswe was encouraged by her father to follow her dreams, no matter what. Now in her mid-30s, Precious is doing just that — by opening her country's first and only female-owned detective agency for the benefit of those who need help the most.
The first major film/TV project to be shot entirely on location in Botswana, 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' is based on the best-selling novels by Alexander McCall Smith and co-written and executive produced by Richard Curtis and the late Anthony Minghella.
Continue reading "(TV) The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Debuts on HBO this Sunday" »
Very few Cameroonians know the history of Cameroon in all its diversity and depth. And with good reason. Most of what passes for “Cameroonian history” in schools is a sanitized version of the country’s history whose sole purpose is to reinforce “state control” and “toe-the-line” concepts such as “unité nationale and intégration nationale. These concepts seek to legitimize the official narrative on the “colonial partition” of the Cameroonian family and the ultimate “reunification” of these long lost brothers and sisters against all odds in 1961 in a “historic burst of nationalism”. Any piece of history which either questions or contradicts this official narrative, or fails to add value to it, is simply ignored or discarded. The result? Many key events and personalities in Cameroon’s pre-colonial and colonial history remain largely unknown and confined to local and ethnic folklore.
For over a decade, the issue of female circumcision or “Female Genital Mutilation” (FGM) has occupied a choice place in human rights campaigns, particularly in the West where it has been integrated into feminist discourse, with FGM mutilation being seen as a perfect symbol of the oppressive and brutal weight of patriarchal traditional African societies. As 
On Aug. 9, 1989, as a black man was stopped on a bridge in Stuttgart forquestioning, he knifed two officers to death and wounded three others before being shot dead himself. This man's name was Frederic Otomo [from Cameroon]. At about 6:15 that morning, he had been confronted on a subway train by a ticket inspector, who told him he had to get off at the next stop. The inspector got aggressive with Otomo, who head-butted him and fled from the train, setting up the manhunt that ended on the bridge. 
, who tries to imagine what went through Otomo's mind between the two confrontations.
Before the Sunrise, the first major collaboration between 
As the world watched in horror, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Like many who watched the unfolding drama on television news, director Spike Lee was shocked not only by the scale of the disaster, but by the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery effort. Lee was moved to document this modern American tragedy, a morality play witnessed by people all around the world. The result is WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS. The film is structured in four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina's catastrophic passage through New Orleans.
Set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto - where survival is the primary objective - TSOTSI traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader who ends up caring for a baby accidentally kidnapped during a car-jacking. 
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