Land Rush

Film

by Hugo Berkeley & Osvalde Lewat

Details

Cameroon, Mali, UK and USA / 2012 / 58mins / Documentary / Bambara, English and French

For 20 years, the hunger crisis seemed to be under control. But by 2008, prices had increased, and the African continent had become a playground for foreign investors. This investigative documentary focuses on Sosumar, a huge project that has the Malian government collaborating with a large group of foreign investors.

Trailer

About the Directors

Hugo Berkeley

Hugo Berkeley is a half-British, half-American film director based in London. His directing credits include: Land Rush, a film for the Why Poverty? series about industrial vs. small-scale farming in Africa; The Market Maker for PBS/WNET about agricultural development in Ethiopia; and A Normal Life, winner of the Tribeca Best Documentary award, about a group of young friends in post-war Kosovo. He co-produced the theatrical documentary Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love. Hugo Berkeley also works as a producer, director, and editor of television documentaries for channels including CNN, MTV, VH1, and Bravo. Passionate about harnessing media for social change, his work has been supported by Ford, MacArthur and Rockefeller Brothers Foundations and he has been recognized with a UN appointment. He directed the Peabody Award winning The Jazz Ambassadors (2018). Learn More

Osvalde Lewat

Osvalde Lewat is an award-winning filmmaker who began making documentaries after several years as a journalist. She produced her first documentary, Upsa Yimoowin (The Pipe of Hope) in Toronto in 2000. The film denounces the sidelining of Native Americans. With Au-delà de la peine, Lewat tells the story of a prisoner who, after being sentenced to four years in jail for a minor offense, is imprisoned for thirty-three years. In her 2009 film, Black Business, Lewat addresses the question posed by Nigerian Nobel Laureate author Wole Soyinka: “They say Africans are not ready for democracy. So I wonder: have they ever been ready for dictatorship?” Lewat studied at Sciences Po in Paris. Since 2012, Levat's main focus has been on photography. Her work explores the idea of "otherness and ways of seeing". She has exhibited her work in Paris, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Learn More