Four dramatic shorts from the landmark 1997 television series Africa Dreaming, an Arte production which draws together broadcasters, producers, directors, and writers from across the continent. Sophia's Homecoming (Richard Pakleppa, Namibia), in which a woman who left home to work as a domestic finds that her sister has replaced her in the affections of her family, reminds us of the devastating personal effects of the massive social dislocations caused by apartheid. Sabriya (Abderrahmane Sissako, Tunisia) explores the impact of the modern world on the traditional male society of the Maghreb. The men prefer to live life as an abstract game but a free-spirited woman changes all that. So Be It (Joseph Gai Ramaka, Senegal) offers an emotionally searing allegory of present-day Africa's internecine convulsions in the story of an idealistic foreign doctor working in a dusty "village of the damned." The Gaze of the Stars (João Ribeiro, Mozambique) is a wryly pessimistic film in which men sense their machismo has driven away what they most desired but lack the strength to change.