Region: Africa
500 Years Later
- Director: Owen 'Alik Shahadah
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: United Kingdom, United States
The people of Africa, scattered all over the globe after 500 years of colonial and imperial encounters, struggle still for equality in education, in opportunity, in prosperity. This is their story.
A Costa dos Murmúrios (The Murmuring Coast)
- Director: Margarida Cardoso
- Release Date: 2004
- Production Country: Portugal
Moving from Lisbon from Mozambique to marry her fiance, a Portuguese soldier, Evita realizes in the months after the wedding that her husband little resembles the man she fell in love with. Left alone when he is sent on an extended military mission, Evita refuses to remain secluded in the "safe" part of the city as commanded, but as she comes face to face with the ugly reality of a land fighting for its freedom from colonial oppression, can she find a way to help, or is she doomed as a woman to simply cower in acceptance of her husband and her nation's violence?
A Dry White Season
- Director: Euzhan Palcy
- Release Date: 1989
- Production Country: United States
When the black gardener at Ben Du Toit's school asks for help finding his son, who he fears has been killed by the police, Ben, who is a white teacher, refuses—he is certain that the government he trusts would not be so unfaithful to any citizen. But when the boy turns up dead, Ben can no longer ignore the brutality and inequality sanctioned by his government and, as it becomes more and more difficult to simply stand by, Ben steps up.
Action in Arabia
- Director: Léonide Moguy
- Release Date: 1944
- Production Country: United States
An American reporter in Damascus, while seeking information about his friend's murder, manages to fend off 'dangerous women' and 'sinister Arabs,' and to foil a Nazi plot to unite the Arab tribes against Allied interests.
Adanggaman
- Director: Roger Gnoan M'Bala
- Release Date: 2000
- Production Country: France, Switzerland, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Italy
Ossei believes his family to be killed and his village destroyed in a raid by their neighbor King Adanggaman; however, Ossei discovers that his mother is still alive and pursues the soldiers who are marching their captives to market, hoping to free her before she, along with the rest of his people, is sold into slavery.
Adieu Bonaparte
- Director: Youssef Chahine
- Release Date: 1985
- Production Country: Egypt, France
The French invasion of Egypt in 1798 – 1804 by Napoleon Bonaparte provides a backdrop for this nationalistic story.
Adwa: An African Victory
- Director: Haile Gerima
- Release Date: 1999
- Production Country: United States, Germany, Ethiopia
An Italian army, desperately low on morale and supplies, plans one last attack against an Ethiopian force despite being inferior in numbers, leadership, and armament. The decisive victory of Africans over Europeans became a near mythical event in African history and left Ethiopia as the only African country that was not overrun by colonial powers.
Africa Speaks!
- Director: Walter Futter
- Release Date: 1930
- Production Country: United States
Africa is a land of many wonders, filled with people and animals unlike any that Europe and the United States have seen. Filmmaker Paul Hoefler spent a year travelling through central Africa, recording the people and their world in order to show the western world what he found so fascinating about the "Dark Continent."
Afrique, je te plumerai (Africa, I Will Fleece You)
- Director: Jean-Marie Téno
- Release Date: 1993
- Production Country: Cameroon, France, Germany
Expressions of Cameroon's indigenous culture were not only repressed by colonial governments, but rooted out and systematically destroyed, at first by Europeans and then by the strongmen who came to power as the only tolerable alternative to the European interests that still control much of the country's economic interests.
Against All Flags
- Director: George Sherman
- Release Date: 1952
- Production Country: United States
British naval officer Brian Hawke infiltrates a band of pirates in the Indian Ocean and proceeds to save the princess, out-duel the pirate captain, and convince the beautiful Spitfire that a pirate's life is not for her.
Agora
- Director: Alejandro Amenábar
- Release Date: 2009
- Production Country: Spain
In 4th-century pagan Alexandria, Hypatia chooses the independent life of a scientist over marriage to Orestes and is a successful teacher for many years. But as Christianity slowly takes over the city, Hypatia's scientific studies lead to her being charged of witchcraft and, when Orestes, himself now a Christian, hesitates to have her condemned as a witch, the mob takes the matter into their own hands, leaving only a Christian slave whom Hypatia freed years earlier to save her.
Al-massir (Destiny)
- Director: Youssef Chahine
- Release Date: 1997
- Production Country: France, Egypt
Averroes is appointed as grand ulama by the caliph, but is driven out by the caliph's fundamentalist rivals.
Alba de América (Dawn of America)
- Director: Juan de Orduña
- Release Date: 1951
- Production Country: Spain
Christopher Columbus convinces the Spanish Royal couple to finance his journey to look for a western route to China, and stumbles upon an entirely "New World."
Alexander
- Director: Oliver Stone
- Release Date: 2004
- Production Country: Germany, United States, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Italy
Alexander sets out from Macedonia to conquer the world and succeeds.
Alexander the Great
- Director: Robert Rossen
- Release Date: 1956
- Production Country: United States, Spain
Alexander reminds the Greeks his father conquered them, then assumes position at the head of their army to set out and conquer the world.
Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony
- Director: Lee Hirsch
- Release Date: 2002
- Production Country: South Africa, United States
In the struggle to overturn apartheid in South Africa, music was an essential tool; it built community, allowed communication, and provided a common language for people to share their story both within South Africa and with the rest of the world.
Amistad
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Release Date: 1997
- Production Country: United States
Thinking they are free when they escape their chains and overthrow their Spanish captors, a group of kidnapped Africans who were to be sold as slaves instead find themselves trapped in a Virginia courtroom where they are caught between the laws of three nations and must fight to prove their status as free human beings.
An Inconvenient Truth
- Director: Davis Guggenheim
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States
Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore embarks upon a campaign to make global warming an issue that can no longer be ignored by the industrialized world.
An Islamic History of Europe
- Director: Paul Sapin
- Release Date: 2004
- Production Country: United Kingdom
The landscape of medieval Europe was the dynamic space in which Muslim kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire provided the seeds of science and learning that led to the European Renaissance.
Ancient Inventions
- Director: Daniel Percival, Phil Grabsky
- Release Date: 1998
- Production Country: United Kingdom, United States
Ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones skewers modern conceits about past scientific and technological innovations, discussing how they are not products of the modern industrial age–in fact, some inventions are quite ancient and some modern science cannot yet be duplicated.