The Best Films I watched in Africa

Although I didn't live very far from Lubango's cinema, I only visited it one time during my year there. Still, I did watch a number of films - in part from watching television, partially from what I could stream online, and a few that I borrowed from people's collections. From my time in Lubango, here are the best films I saw:

1. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith A harsh Australian film about a young indigenous man whose naivete is shattered when white people try to ruin him out of sheer pettiness; then he resorts to murder. The protagonist has a sympathetic plight, yet he performs horrible actions- it's one that will give you something to talk about.
2. Cluny Brown (1946) A charming Ernst Lubitsch comedy about a young woman who works as a maid for a wealthy English family but her true passion is plumbing.
3. The Color Out of Space (2019) An H.P. Lovecraft horror story adaptation that indulges in a lot of genuinely disturbing body horror. Nicolas Cage is actually pretty good and doesn't simply play his "crazy Cage" character (though there's some of that too).
4. Dr. No (1962) I'd never actually watched the first Bond film all the way through - I really didn't get into Bond until the Daniel Craig era. I enjoyed that this film begins very low-key and uses very believable spycraft for the first half. Then the sci-fi stuff shows up, but by then I was hooked.
5. For Your Eyes Only (1981) Continuing with Bond, the Roger Moore films were the movies I was least interested in, but this one turned out to be very strong - it wasn't as goofy as the other films I'd seen, nor did it use a lot of silly made-up tech. There were also some fun stunts, especially in the car chase. This might be my favourite Moore as Bond film.
6. God Grew Tired of Us (2006) A documentary which follows young men from Sudan from a refugee camp to life in the USA. A very sympathetic portrait of the affected men's lives.
7. Hoosiers (1986) A basketball drama about an urban coach who relocates to a rural school and tries to raise the school's basketball team to a competitive level, yet finds resistance from the community because his methods are unfamiliar.
8. Independencia (2015) A truly excellent documentary about the war of independence in Angola. The DVD comes with a 2nd disc which explains how the film was made, which is equally fascinating. This is a great living history of Angola's recent past.
9. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) An adaptation of a stage play and one of Chadwick Boseman's final roles about a band gathering to record a single and the trumpet player who is trying to raise his profile, to considerable drama.
10. Mank (2020) A well-made if somewhat ahistorical account of Herman Mankiewicz's crafting of the script to Citizen Kane.
11. Santana (2020) Not exactly a great action movie, but because this film was made in Angola I'm a little more forgiving towards it - it's the best Angolan action movie I've seen. Admittedly, that's a very generous curve to grade upon.
12. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) This is the one movie I went to see in the cinema. I don't think Top Gun is a particularly good film but I was okay with watching a dumb action movie; as it turns out, it's actually a good action movie with better character work than I expected.
13. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) An interesting true story I hadn't known about; it bears a lot of Aaron Sorkin's typical writing tricks and some of them are getting pretty tiresome at this stage. But the performances are strong.
14. We Intend to Cause Havoc (2019) An unusual documentary about the Zambian group W.I.T.C.H. who performed Zamrock in the 70s. In looking up the surviving member of the original group, the documentary ends up causing the band to re-form and go on tour! It's a fun snapshot of Zambia of the 70s vs. Zambia of the 2010s.