Yaaba is a 1989 Burkinabé drama film written, produced, and directed by Idrissa Ouedraogo. It won the Sakura Gold prize at the 1989 Tokyo Film Festival. The film was selected as the Burkinabé entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The film was the subject of a short documentary Parlons Grand-mère, which was shot during the film's production by Djibril Diop Mambéty.
Synopsis
The film is set in a small African village. Bila (Noufou Ouédraogo) is a ten-year-old boy who makes friends with an old woman called Sana (Fatimata Sanga), who has been accused of witchcraft by her village, and has become a social outcast. Only Bila is respectful of her, and calls her "Yaaba" (Grandmother). When Bila's cousin, Nopoko (Roukietou Barry), falls ill, a medicine man insists that Sana has stolen the girl's soul. Sana undergoes a long and grueling journey to find a medicine to save Nopoko's life. Sana manages to save Nopoko's life, but is still treated as a witch. After Sana dies, the real reason why she is hated in the village is uncovered, but her love and wisdom she invested in Bila and Nopoko lives on.
There are 19 films with the same director, 61557 with the same cinematographic genres, 1383 films with the same themes, to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.
If you liked Grandmother, you will probably like those similar films :
, 1h21 Directed byIdrissa Ouédraogo OriginUnited-kingdom GenresDrama, Romance ThemesFilms set in Africa Rating68% Saga returns to his village after a long absence, and finds that his father has married Nogma, his fiancee, during his leave. Nogma has become his second wife, and by law, Saga's mother. Saga runs away and builds a straw hut near the village. Still in love, Saga and Nogma begin an affair, with Nogma telling her parents she is going to visit her aunt, then running to Saga's hut. After the affair is discovered, Saga's father decrees that he must die for dishonoring the family. Nogma's father hangs himself from a tree, and Nogma is disowned by her mother at her father's funeral. Saga's brother Kougri is selected to execute Saga. He pretends to kill Saga so as to restore the family's honor. Saga and Nogma then run away to another village, and the family falls apart. As Saga and Nogma begin to build a life, Nogma tells Saga that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Kougri comes to regret his failure to kill Saga. After Saga's birth mother dies, Saga returns to the village, exposing Kougri's failure to carry out his father's orders. Kougri's father tells him he is banished. Kougri then picks up Saga's rifle and shoots him for having brought ruin to the family and his own life. He then walks off into exile and probable death.
, 1h33 Directed byIdrissa Ouédraogo GenresDrama ThemesFilms set in Africa ActorsVusi Kunene, John Kani Rating70% Somewhere in southern Africa, in a huge region populated by poor peasants, two friends dream of a better life, far from their village, and decide to leave and make their dream come true. To leave, they attempt to repair an old car with second-hand spare parts, but their family and friends make fun of them. Little by little, their impetus dies down and so does their friendship. Finally, bitterness and jealousy put an end to the friendship between the two men and they become fierce enemies.
, 1h25 Directed byIdrissa Ouédraogo GenresDrama ThemesFilms set in Africa ActorsBakary Sangaré, Mariam Kaba Rating68% Two men hold up a gas station in the middle of the night. One of them is killed. The other one, Samba, flees with a suitcase full of money. He returns to his village with his new fortune and starts a new life. He opens a bar, gets married… But he cannot forget what he did. He lives in constant fear of getting caught by the police and his neighbors wonder about his past… Can one forget the murky past and return to a normal life so easily?
, 1h56 Directed byBronwen Hughes OriginSouth africa GenresDrama, Biography, Action, Crime ThemesFilms set in Africa, Films about racism, Heist films, Gangster films, Escroquerie ActorsThomas Jane, Deborah Kara Unger, David O'Hara, Dexter Fletcher, Marius Weyers, Ron Smerczak Rating69% Andre Stander is an officer with the South African Police, newly married with a reputation as the youngest captain on the force, he and his partner are assigned along with other officers to riot duty in the wake of the Soweto uprising. In the chaos of one of the riots in Tembisa, Stander shoots a young, unarmed protester, which deeply affects him and causes him to become disillusioned towards the Apartheid system. One day on his lunch break Stander decides to spontaneously walk in and rob a bank, he thoroughly enjoys the rush and decides to embark on a spree of robberies, even responding to one in official capacity as an officer. In the wake of these robberies, Cor Van Deventer, Stander's partner, leads a team assigned to take down the new bank robber. Eventually being able to see through Stander's disguises, Deventer's team finally makes the arrest, Andre Stander is stripped of his position and sentenced to 32 years in prison.
, 2h1 Directed byAntoine Fuqua OriginUSA GenresDrama, War, Thriller, Action ThemesFilms set in Africa, Seafaring films, Transport films, United States Armed Forces in films ActorsBruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Eamonn Walker, Johnny Messner, Tom Skerritt Rating66% Lieutenant A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) and his U.S. Navy SEAL detachment Zee (Eamonn Walker), Slo (Nick Chinlund), Red (Cole Hauser), Lake (Johnny Messner), Silk (Charles Ingram), Doc (Paul Francis), and Flea (Chad Smith), are sent by Captain Bill Rhodes (Tom Skerritt) to Nigeria to extract a "critical persona", one Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a U.S. citizen by marriage. Their secondary mission is to extract the mission priest (Pierrino Mascarino) and two nuns (Fionnula Flanagan & Cornelia Hayes O'Herlihy).
, 1h47 OriginUSA GenresDrama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance ThemesFilms set in Africa ActorsEriq Ebouaney, Nick Boraine Rating67% The story revolves around an animal rescue shelter and the characters who work there. Kate runs the shelter and is involved with a married man, oblivious to the romantic interests of Morne, the local veterinarian. Sharifa, the receptionist, is desperately struggling to have a child and satisfy her husband. And handyman Jean Claude finds himself torn between his love for a single mother and the desire to emigrate.
, 1h34 Directed byAndré Téchiné OriginFrance GenresDrama, Romance ThemesFilms set in Africa, Films about sexuality, Bisexuality-related films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related film ActorsGérard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Gilbert Melki, Malik Zidi, Lubna Azabal, Tanya Lopert Rating60% Antoine, a successful French civil engineer, travels to Tangiers to supervise the construction of buildings for a large media center. His real motivation, however, is to seek out his first love from thirty years before, Cécile. Having discovered that Cécile lives in Tangiers, he begins anonymously sending her roses every day at the radio station where she hosts a French-Arabic program, but she is uninterested in her secret admirer. Cécile, who married a man shortly after ending her relationship with Antoine, only to divorce later, is currently married to a younger man, Nathan, a Moroccan Jewish physician.
, 1h34 OriginSouth africa GenresDrama, Thriller, Action ThemesFilms set in Africa, Films about racism, Political films ActorsTaye Diggs, Gabriel Mann, Jason Flemyng, Bonginkosi Dlamini, Bonnie Henna Rating63% The story is based on real events and real people and is set in the mid-1950s freehold township of Sophiatown, Johannesburg— one of the few areas in South Africa where blacks could own property and drink alcoholic beverages. Drum begins with the central character, sportswriter Henry Nxumalo, reporting on a boxing match with Nelson Mandela. Nxumalo leaves his wife Florence at home while going out into his community's night life and has an affair with a female singer. He works for Drum magazine, which was "the first black lifestyle magazine in Africa." The magazine was financed by whites and had a multiracial staff; it was popular among the black community. Drum's British editor, Jim Bailey (Jason Flemyng), asks Nxumalo to write on the township crime scene, and Nxumalo, while at first unwilling, finally agrees. While on the job, he encounters Slim (Zola), a gang leader, that he had previously met in illegal township drinking places, and witnesses him kill a man in Sophiatown.