These Hands (Flora M'mbugu-Schelling, Tanzania, 1992). By simply recording a day in the life of women breaking rocks in a Tanzanian quarry, without narration or plot, These Hands offers one of the most unforgettable and rewarding experiences in recent African cinema. The viewer slowly realizes that the rocks, the women, the scarred landscape are all ground into the common currency of industrial civilization. A moment of joy at the day's end, when the women spontaneously break into song atop the rocks, holds out the hope of resistance against the crushing forces of dehumanization. (45 mins, In Swahili and Kimakonde, Color, 16mm) Le Franc (Djibril Diop Mambety, Senegal, 1994). The accomplished director Mambety begins a trilogy of shorts, Tales of Little People, "for whom every morning brings the same question: how to preserve what is essential in themselves." When a penniless musician, played by Chaplinesque comic actor Dieye Ma Dieye, wins the lottery, he begins a tortuous journey across Dakar which becomes a symbol for Africans' resilience and ingenuity in the face of overwhelming economic obstacles. (45 mins, In Wolof with English subtitles, Color, 35mm)