Best movies like Letter from My Village

In an exclusive Swiss school for young girls, Christa Storm discovers she is going to have a baby, and keeps the secret from everyone but her lover, David Perrin, a young medical student. Having been in the private school most of her life, she can't confide in her father whom she hardly knows and, while he wishes to but can't afford to marry her, David can't get the approval of his father.a

It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed. White money still controls the government. One official, Aboucader Beye, known by the title "El Hadji," takes advantage of some of that money to marry his third wife, to the sorrow and chagrin of his first two wives and the resentment of his nationalist daughter. But he discovers on his wedding night that he has been struck with a "xala," a curse of impotence. El Hadji goes to comic lengths to find the cause and remove the xala, resulting in a scathing satirical ending.

Senegalese immigrant Aisha lands a job as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan couple. As she prepares for the arrival of the son she left behind in Senegal, a violent presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality, threatening to destroy the American Dream she is painstakingly piecing together.

Mythical story about a fishing village on the south coast of Senegal. Two men in the village are both in love with the same beautiful girl.

Arranged to marry a rich man, young Ada is crushed when her true love goes missing at sea during a migration attempt — until a miracle reunites them.

Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.

After a lively high school reunion, Jessica and Cynthia reconnect with their childhood friend Karen and vow to stay in close communication online. After a year of cheerful daily status updates, Karen begins to post some strange updates to her life. When Jessica tries to call Karen to let her know that she and Cynthia will be in town for the week she is unable to reach her. Sensing something may be seriously wrong, Jessica tracks down Karen's husband Paul to find out where her friend is. Paul tells her that Karen ran off to Hawaii due to marriage issues but Jessica is convinced he is lying. But when random status posts begin showing up on Karen's page, Jessica suspects that someone else might be behind it...

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

A now-rich woman returns to her poor desert hometown to propose a deal to the populace: her fortune, in exchange for the death of the man who years earlier abandoned her and left her with his child.

1917. Bakary Diallo enlists in the French army to join his 17-year-old son, Thierno, who has been forcibly recruited. Sent to the front, they will have to face the war together. While Thierno learns to become a man, Bakary will do everything to bring him back safely.

In an early 20th century village, a painter with an unusual commission finds two pretty girls two model for him. The girls slowly come of age while exploring their sexuality and finding liberation in a repressed society.

The film tells the story of Matt, a male hockey player who dies in a game and comes back to life as Sara Bryan, a female figure skater due to an accident made by an angel that caused the hockey player to die. Both share the dream of competing in the Winter Olympics. The male hockey player specified that if he returned to earth, he wanted to have a chance to win an Olympic Gold medal on ice leaving the detail that he wanted to be on the hockey team implied. With time running short Matt has to get skating lessons from Sara's one-time rival if he wishes to earn gold.

The French Michel and the Senegalese Malik, childhood friends now grown and both working in government, deal with rapid changes taking place as Senegal becomes independent.

A money order from a relative in Paris throws the life of a Senegalese family man out of order. He deals with corruption, greed, problematic family members, the locals and the changing from his traditional way of living to a more modern one.

This revealing documentary offers a rare view of daily life in West Africa. Shot in Senegal, Selbe focuses on the social role and economic responsibility of women in African society. Because men often leave their communities to earn money in the city, women are left with sole responsibility for their families. Through the character of Selbe we observe how one woman's personal struggle reflects the broader issues faced by many women in developing countries.

Pedro returns home to a small mountain village in Guerrero, Mexico after years of working in the US. He finds his daughters older, and more distant than he imagined. His wife still has the same smile. Having saved some earnings from two trips to the US, he hopes to now finally make a better life with his family, and even to pursue his dreams on the side by starting a band: Copa Kings. He cherishes the everyday moments with his family. The villagers think this year's crop will be bountiful. There is also good work in a growing city an hour away. But the locals are wise to a life of insecurity, and their thoughts are often of family members or opportunities far away, north of the border. While working in the fields, Pedro meets and begins to mentor a teenager who dreams of the US. That place somehow always feels very present, practically knocking at the door. "Aquí y Allá" is a story about hope, and the memories and loss of what we leave behind.

Two brothers fight over their children’s wedding. Tierno’s role as a father and his responsibility as a spiritual leader are at odds.

Mati, a divorced mother of a young daughter, makes a living selling bric-a-bric from a wheelbarrow and dreams of opening a snack bar. But she falls for the charms of Naago, a cop, and it's only when the Tajaboom festival (at which women and men switch roles) arrives that her opportunity for escape emerges.

Bizet's Carmen gets a modern adaptation. Seducting, provocating, sensual. All the ingredients for a perfect drama. With her charm, Karmen gets out of many situations.

Milan, like Paris or Stuttgart, and like many other European cities, is the theater of the drama of immigration. Demba reconstructs his story and that of his brother Yaro, both Senegalese immigrants in Italy, in a long and fragmentary flashback that begins with Yaro’s murder and recounts their departure from the village, arrival in Europe, the work they find selling lighters and picking tomatoes in the south of Italy: the stages every “non-EEC citizen” goes through in Italy.

A cowherd with a skull-mounted motorcycle and a university student meet in Dakar; put off by life in Senegal, they plan to make money in Paris.

In this conclusion of the long running series it finally happens: Kelly and Zack will marry. Zack's parents are against the early commitment and Kelly's parents can't afford it, so only the gang travels to Las Vegas for the wedding. However, before the wedding can happen, they have to live through many adventures, including Zack losing his hard earned money, Kelly becoming jealous and Slater being chased by mobsters.

From his village in northern Senegal, Yao is a 13-year-old boy ready to do anything to meet his hero: Seydou Tall, a famous French actor. Invited to Dakar to promote his new book, the latter goes to his country of origin for the first time. To fulfill his dream, the young Yao organizes his fugue and brave 387 kilometers alone to the capital. Touched by this child, the actor decides to flee his obligations and to accompany him home. But on the dusty and uncertain roads of Senegal, Seydou understands that while rolling towards the village of the child, it also rolls towards its roots.

A penniless, fast-thinking musician buys a lottery ticket which he glues to his back door, in hopes of eventually retrieving his instrument from his exasperating landlady. —but the ticket wins...

Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. The young married couple lives in a remote village in northern Senegal. For them, nothing else exists. Yet their perfect everlasting love is on a collision course with their community’s customs. Because in this world, there is no room for passion, let alone chaos.

A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers are Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts.

It is early 1939 in Poland when Mrs. Bromley and Jennifer come to buy antiques for her business in London. Jennifer meets Count Stephen and they wine, dine and see the sights though out the city. He wishes to marry, but his family is against plain Jennifer. When she tries to leave, he catches her at the train station and they are married. To be self sufficient, they modernize the family farm with tractors and increase production, but then Germany starts the war.

Baye Laye is the captain of a fishing pirogue. Like many of his Senegalese compatriots, he sometimes dreams of new horizons, where he can earn a better living for his family. When he is offered to lead one of the many pirogues that head towards Europe via the Canary Island, he reluctantly accepts the job, knowing full-well the dangers that lie ahead. Leading a group of 30 men who don't all speak the same language, some of whom have never seen the sea, Baye Laye will confront many perils in order to reach the distant coasts of Europe.

A beautiful 14-year-old girl has just reached marriageable age in a village in Senegal. She has many suitors; however, she is in love a poor student who has returned to the village while the university is on strike. At birth, she had been promised in marriage to Diogoye, who went away to work in France. Diogoye, who supplied her parents with many things over the years, has now sent a dowry, and asked that she be married to him in the village in his absence; she would then be sent to France.

This sweet musical takes us on a cross-country trip through Senegal, from Dakar to Saint Louis in a battered taxi, as passengers sing their stories.

El Hadj is studying in Paris. He is one of the young Senegalese men who have come to Paris since the French colony became independent to get a good education so that he can serve his fatherland on his return. Unexpectedly he is suddenly confronted by a problem with his residence papers, just because he has arranged an extension too late. His pleasant life filled with good prospects has gone in one fell swoop. He faces a dilemma. He can stay illegally in France, the country where he feels at home, where he has his friends, has fallen in love and can drink water from the tap. Or he can return (without graduating) to the 3rd-world country of Senegal to use the knowledge he has acquired. It is not only a practical choice. It comes down to the question of who he is, who he thought he could be.

Muhad, a Muslim boy from Afghanistan, attends college in California, where he falls in love with an American journalism student, Victoria. Shortly after, his father suffers a stroke and Muhad must return home to tend to the family farm. As time passes, most of the crops are wiped out by the ongoing drought. Muhad is forced to head North with the rest of the farmers to harvest the poppies. Victoria has settled into her new life as a journalist for a local newspaper in San Francisco. When she follows a lead on a story about the ongoing war on drugs in Afghanistan, she is surprised to find her once innocent, first love is now a major player in the opium poppy trade.

Senegalese pop sensation Youssou Ndour has spent the last 20 years in the spotlight as a world-renowned musician and the iconic representative "voice of Africa." At the height of his career, Youssou became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam. The album's brave musical message was wholeheartedly embraced by Western audiences but ignited serious religious controversy in his homeland of Senegal. The film chronicles the difficult journey Youssou must undertake to assume his true calling.

As 85-year-old President Lorenzo Snow struggles to vanquish the two million dollar indebtedness of the Mormon church in 1899, he feels inspired to journey from Salt Lake City by train and carriage to St. George in southern Utah. Along the way he witnesses the effects of severe drought. The next day, in the St. George Tabernacle, he receives inspiration that by paying tithing, the "windows of heaven" will open, pouring out blessings. He promises the people that they can plant crops and rain will come, then continues to preach tithing as he returns home where he awaits favorable weather reports from St. George.

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) is a documentary that was shot over the course of 23 years, Thavi narrates his own story as a child surviving the Vietnam war and loss of his father, and then, as a young man struggling to overcome the hardships of immigrant life, an experience shared with his mother in war.