Cinema as a medium can represent memory in its most fullest and meaningful sense. It has the ability to represent our memories, history and archive. In curating, we often deliberate about the considerations that make a film worthy of programming and curating to audiences. The most common quality I’ve come to know and appreciate is a film’s ability to be memorable. Will audiences remember it? Will you remember it? And why do you remember it?  I think memorability as a quality is something that has come to mean everything to me in my line of work as a filmmaker, film curator and creative researcher. The ability to easily and vividly recall a film in the middle of a conversation about form or structure or narrative. There is something undeniably powerful about being able to create a film that lives in the minds of people, years after it's been made. Over the last 2 years, I’ve had the honour of watching some of the most refreshing, memorable and vividly stunning African films I’ve seen in my entire lifespan. As a large section of cinema, African diasporic films are brilliant at weaving memory and nostalgia across countries and regions and remind us all of a shared experience that we may not be able to fully articulate. Here are some of my favourites:

Bazigaga directed by Jo Ingabire Moys

1994, Rwanda. As the genocide rages on, a pastor and his young daughter take shelter in the hut of a feared shaman : Bazigaga. Hunted by the militias and trapped with the strange woman sorcerer, Karembe seeks a way out.

Tsutsue directed by Amartei Armar

Set in a small Ghanaian town at the edge of a large landfill site that spills into the ocean, the sons of a fisherman, Sowah and Okai, struggle to cope with the loss of their eldest brother who drowned during a fishing expedition. Haunted by his demise, Okai believes their brother is still out there.

Egúngún / Masquerade directed by Olive Nwosu

In search of healing, a young woman returns home to Nigeria, the country of her birth.

Moon Over Aburi directed by Sheila Nortley

Two strangers, a man, and a woman, each unfold a shared story. For one, a mission; the other, a secret. Through each of their experiences, we see how societal pressures continue to ripple through childhood and beyond.

Goodbye Julia directed by Mohammed Kordofani 

Wracked by guilt after covering up a murder, Mona — a northern Sudanese retired singer in a tense marriage — tries to make amends by taking in the deceased’s southern Sudanese widow, Julia, and her son, Daniel, into her home. 

Unable to confess her transgressions to Julia, Mona decides to leave the past behind and adjust to a new status quo, unaware that the country’s turmoil may find its way into her home and put her face to face with her sins.

Ampe: Leap into the sky black girl directed by Claudia Owusu and Ife Oluwamuyide

Set in the sister cities of Accra, Ghana and Columbus, Ohio, “Ampe: Leap into the Sky, Black Girl” is a rhythmic love letter to Black girlhood across the African diaspora. Through the lens of the Ghanaian traditional jumping and clapping game, Ampe, the film takes us on a journey of sisterhood, loyalty, and nostalgia in a space created for us, by us.

Eating Pawpaw on the seashore directed by Rae Wiltshire, Nickose Layne

A coming-of-age film about two queer Guyanese boys, who are navigating their feelings in a homophobic society.

Milisuthando Directed by Milisuthando Bongela

8 years in the making, Milisuthando is a portrait of me and South Africa growing up together in the aftermath of apartheid. Driven by my narrative voice and a compelling cast of my family, friends, foes and some historical figures, the story braids together the three different worlds of my childhood — The now defunct Republic of Transkei, East London in the 1990s new South Africa and my adult life in Johannesburg. Spanning 30 years in a non-linear manner, the film is a meditation on difficult questions about power, fear, intimacy and love as it relates to race. Through a roving feminine lens, we find ourselves in happened-upon environments that take the viewer into the interiors of the new South Africa and its relationship with its past. 

Familiar Traces directed by Izzy Mana

An exploration of the expectations of a young Black British man who’s struggling with his identity and the pressure of unseen responsibility. He reflects on a conversation he had with his father when he was younger which helps him to navigate his adult life. Using the Baobab tree to symbolise his life, meaning and culture.

Desmonds not here anymore directed by Mmabatho Montsho

As a daughter packs up her childhood home and tries to cope with her beloved mother’s dementia and repeated calls for the absent Desmond, she is no longer able to conceal her own pain as a survivor of sexual abuse.