This list is partly self-indulgent. It is also a way–hopefully weekly–for me to keep an online record of films I still would like to see. Here’s a few.

First up, Lotte Stoofs’s documentary film about the life of a landmark hotel in Beira, Mozambique:

“Swahili Fighting Words,” a feature documentary about a Tanzanian filmmaker’s search for his family roots:

“The Encounter,” a short about “a young white woman on a search for inner peace, [who] gets stuck in an elevator with an older African man”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCkWB5Vc7_k

Then there’s “Umkhungo,” a short film by a Johannesburg director that weds Hollywood and popular South African beliefs about the supernatural:

There seems to be a few films with themes on gay beauty competitions in Cape Town. We’ve blogged here about “Glitterboys and Ganglands.” Now there’s “Sisterhood,” a film about 3 farmworkers who dream of acceptance and winning a local drag competition.

The documentary “Blood in the Mobile”:

Director Franck Piasecki Poulsen embarks on a personal mission to uncover the origin of the minerals in his Nokia cell phone. Navigating the bureaucracy, corruption, and dangers of eastern Congo, he arrives at Bisie, one of the largest and most notorious illegal mines in the region, where armed groups maintain tight control and inhumane conditions, and child labor runs rampant. Determined to know if his cell phone is funding conflict in Congo, Poulsen works his way into Nokia’s corporate offices, where he confronts executives about their mineral supply chain.

Here’s the trailer: