Ann-Marie O (panafricamarket)

This is a film, not a 'movie'. It will demand a commitment from you by making you care about something on a permanent basis.

Documentary feature films have consistently been the best made and most compelling work out there in recent years. Factual films are often more original, more bizarre, more inspiring and more honest than anything fiction can make up. Watch out for the year when documentaries out-number other genres in the Academy Award nomination list. You heard it here.
You must see:
Riding Giants
Spellbound
Touching the Void.

Kirikou and the Sorceress is a magical, enchanting animated film based on African mythology. Beautiful to look at, funny, wise and charming - it tells the story of little Kirikou's battle with a powerful sorceress who has placed a terrible curse on his village. The film was made by Michel Ocelot, a French film-maker who, having been raised in Guinea, is able to capture the grandeur and age-old mystique of Africa.

I'm grateful to Michel Ocelot for this, noting Disney's glaring lack of animated films with African/ African-American leading characters (no, The Lion King doesn't count). Disney are not obliged to do this in anyway, but with its wonderful stories featuring heroes who are, for example, Native American, Chinese, Greek, Arabic, Indian and Hawaiian you just start wondering if they'll get around to it and why it's taking so long...

NICHELLE NICHOLS In 1966, Nichelle landed a historical role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in Gene Roddenberry's 'Star Trek' - the first series with a regular black character. She broke new ground by performing the first ever inter-racial kiss on TV with William Shatner. She nearly left the programme over a dispute about hate mail from the public that the network kept from her knowledge; however she was persuaded to stay by Dr. Martin Luther King himself who said her role was essential for the long term self-status of black people. Uhura - as you all know, means 'Freedom' in Swahili. LLAP.