Films
The ASCL’s film collection consists of more than 2500 DVDs and focuses mainly on films made by African film makers but also documentaries made by non-Africans. A number of its films have been shown at the Africa in the Picture Festival in Amsterdam (discontinued as of 2013) - the festival’s archives are held at the ASCL’s library.
Most films can be borrowed by the public (Borrowing films). An external DVD-Drive can be borrowed for one week. Those films that cannot be loaned for copyright reasons can be viewed in the library.
All films are listed in the library’s online catalogue and can be searched according to title, author or subject. To retrieve records on films only: in the ‘Advanced’ search mode, deselect all materials except ‘Audio visual’.
Increasingly, the ASCL Library gives access to online films. Films made in Togo, Mali and Burkina Faso between 1973 and 2009 by Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal are available via Wikimedia Commons.
For more films on Africa, please consult the following databases available via the catalogue of Leiden University Libraries:
* Ethnographic Video Online Offers more than 750 hours of classic and contemporary documentaries (restricted access)
* Docuseek streams independent, social-issue and environmental films, providing access to content from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution. To limit your search to Africa, search is possible on the subjects Africa, African Studies, African History and on individual countries (restricted access).
The ASCL library also has more than 500 publications (books, periodicals and articles) on African cinema.
Films in the ASCL collection by country:
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Congo (Brazzaville)
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Swaziland
- Tanzania
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Posted on 28 November 2011, last modified on 12 October 2023