Africa Addio

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Africa Addio is an Italian movie documentary made in 1966 about the end of the colonial era in Africa. The film was released under the names "Africa Blood and Guts" in the USA and "Farewell Africa" in the UK. The movie documents some of the disruptions caused by decolonization, such as poaching in former animal preserves and bloody revolutions, including the Zanzibar revolution which resulted in the massacre of approximately 5000 Arabs in 1964.

1 Credits
2 Controversy
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Credits

The documentary was written, directed, and edited jointly by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi and was narrated by Sergio Rossi (not the fashion designer with the same name).

[edit] Controversy

Many of the scenes (however true) appear to contain gratuitous violence. That is, the excessive violence might be for shock value or considered as historic archive.

Charges of racism:

"On the evening of 2 August 1966 SDS students and members of African student groups held a demonstration at the Astor cinema on the Kurfürstendamm against the film Africa Addio by the Italian director Gualtiero Jacopetti. The film had already been banned as racist in Italy and England, and the left-liberal newspaper Der Abend described Jacopetti as a well known ‘racist, colonialist fascist’."^[1]

Like many movies, this one has been viciously cut. The original portrayed roughly even blame for the events between the native Africans and European colonial powers. This balance was not always maintained in the cut versions, however, such as the 1970 USA release with 57 minutes cut.