Concerning Violence: Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self-Defense (2014)

Director: Göran Hugo Olsson
Run Time: 85 min.
Call Number: DT33 .F313 2004

". . . reflects the shifting focus of Swedish activist filmmakers during the mid-’70s, who grabbed their cameras and traveled to the front lines of African independence, observing firsthand the fall of apartheid and liberation of a people who’d been exploited by white Europeans for decades. . . . In searching for a mechanism to unify this incredible footage, which has gone largely unseen by the general public ever since, Olsson seized upon Fanon’s 1961 tract [The Wretched of the Earth], a controversial anarchist cookbook which analyzed the psychology of occupation and identified violent upheaval as the only means to overthrow colonialism — a system Fanon referred to as 'violence in its
natural state.'"
—Peter Debruge, Variety

God Loves Uganda (2014)

Director: Roger Ross Williams
Run Time: 83 min.
Call Number: HQ76.3.U33 G633 2014

"A searing look at the role of American evangelical missionaries in the persecution of gay Africans, Roger Ross Williams’s God Loves Uganda approaches this intersection of faith and politics with some fairness and a good deal of outrage. . . . Delving into a political framework that ties United States financing of H.I.V. relief efforts to a radical Christian moral agenda, Mr. Williams uses interviews and hidden-camera footage to expose the egotism, avarice and ignorance that undermine more laudable intentions. There is much here to sicken, including a frothing Ugandan pastor presenting an S-and-M video to his flock as a benchmark of gay behavior, and the powder-keg funeral of David Kato, a gay rights advocate who was fatally beaten with a hammer during filming."

—Jeannette Catsloulis,  New York Times

Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What's Ours) (2011)

Director: Bernadette Atuahene
Run Time: 40 min.
Call Number: HD983 .S54 2011

"Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What's Ours) is a documentary film about loss, resistance, identity and the elusiveness of justice as experienced by the Ndolila family in their quest to get back their family land. Standing in their way are working class black homeowners who purchased portions of the Ndolila's land during apartheid. For the homeowners, the land and houses they have legally purchased are a reward for their hard work. It is the fulfillment of their hopes and dreams for a better life in the new democracy. For the Ndolilas, the land is part of their family legacy and hence deeply intertwined with their identity. Both sides have a legitimate right to the land, but whose rights will prevail?"
—From publisher's website

Fire in the Blood (2013)

Director: Dylan Mohan Gray
Run Time: 86 min.
Call Number: RC607.A26 F5455 2013

"This infuriating documentary by Dylan Mohan Gray chronicles the long battle to make generic ARVs available to poor African countries, which big pharma resisted because cheap drugs would undermine their bloated pricing here in the U.S. Of course the federal government supported this unconscionable arrangement—though, as the documentary points out, Washington was more than willing to suspend patents on drugs needed during the post-9/11 anthrax scares. The Clinton Foundation gets a few points for its scheme of pooling poor nations' resources to bargain with the pharmas, but the genuine hero here is Peter Mugyenyi, a Ugandan physician who managed to break the industry's blockade against generic drugs from India."
 —J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Call Me Kuchu (2013)

Director: Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Run Time: 86 min.

"Directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, this is a scary but inspiring film with real heroes and villains. Leading the list of heroes is David Kato, a fearless activist and prime mover in Uganda’s gay rights movement. Uganda’s first openly gay man, he was bludgeoned to death in January 2011 at 46. In a brief biography at the beginning of the film, he tells of his coming out during the six years he lived in South Africa, where a more tolerant atmosphere prevails. "
 —Stephen Holden, New York Times