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58-571: Africa Addio ( lit.   ' Goodbye Africa ' or ' Farewell Africa ' ; also known as Africa: Blood and Guts in the United States and Farewell Africa in the United Kingdom) is a 1966 Italian mondo documentary film co-directed, co-edited and co-written by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi with music by Riz Ortolani . Jacopetti and Prosperi had gained fame (along with co-director Paolo Cavara ) as

116-573: A 1965 British film depicting conditions before and after a nuclear attack on England, would not see public broadcast for twenty years. Filmmakers wanted to top each other in shock value to attract audiences. Cruelty to animals, accidents, tribal-initiation rites and surgeries are features of a typical mondo. Much of the action is staged, although the filmmakers may claim their goal is to document "reality". Subjects of mondo films include sex ( Mondo Sex and Mondo Sexualis USA ); celebrities ( Mondo Elvis and Mondo Lugosi ); youth culture ( Mondo Teeno ) and

174-605: A Catholic Mass and receive the Eucharist while guerilla rebels on the mainland travel hesitantly through the morning fog. In Angola during the Angolan War of Independence , Portuguese soldiers lay traps for the rebel guerillas in the forest. The narrator bitterly laments that the Portuguese have consistently tried to integrate black Africans into society, while the Portuguese settlers were hated and shunned in return. In

232-425: A beast," and is "turned into an extra who dies so Jacopetti can comfortably film his execution." Film critic Roger Ebert , in a scathing 1967 review of the shortened American version of the film, called it "racist" and stated that it "slanders a continent." He drew attention to the opening narration: "Europe has abandoned her baby," the narrator mourns, "just when it needs her the most." Who has taken over, now that

290-666: A language isolate. The traditions of different ethnic groups in South Asia have diverged, influenced by external cultures, especially in the northwestern parts of South Asia and also in the border regions and busy ports, where there are greater levels of contact with external cultures. There is also a lot of genetic diversity within the region. For example, most of the ethnic groups of the northeastern parts of South Asia are genetically related to peoples of East or Southeast Asia . There are also genetically isolated groups who have not been genetically influenced by other groups, such as

348-406: A location where they will be shot by a firing squad. The bodies of countless thousands, some in mass graves and most others strewn across the ground, are photographed from a helicopter. The narrator confirms that this footage is the only documentation to prove that this genocide ever took place. Entire Arab villages march to the sea in a futile attempt to escape the carnage, despite the fact that there

406-518: A millennium prior. The camera crew arrives in Zanzibar from Tanganyika and attempts to land, but they are not granted permission. They attempt to land anyway, but are shot at and narrowly manage to take off again and escape. A second plane containing three German journalists is unable to leave, and the plane is burned. Between 18 and 20 January 1964, a genocide occurs in Zanzibar, with endless lines of captive Arab civilians being marched at gunpoint to

464-424: A plane crewed by Germans on fire and capturing the people inside. In Dar es Salaam, they were almost shot for photographing a massacre. Jacopetti suffered a cut after a soldier smashed their vehicle's windshield with the butt of his rifle . However, the soldiers let them go because they saw on their passports that they were Italian, and thus, "not whites." Jacopetti would refer to this as "a miracle." A soundtrack of

522-430: A resurgence of mondo movies focusing almost exclusively on (onscreen) death, instead of world cultures. The Faces of Death series is a notable example of this type of mondo (or "death") movie. The producers used fake footage (passed off as real), but some of the footage was legitimate (including scenes of autopsies, suicides and accidents). The rare 1985 film Mondo Senza Veli ("World Without Veils or Mondo Fresh")

580-442: A wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio despite using standard spherical lenses. Most documentaries were usually seen in the standard 1.33:1 aspect ratio, so a documentary being filmed on such a wide aspect ratio is something that wasn't seen for decades. The filmmakers were in near-constant danger for most of filming, with Tanganyika and Zanzibar being especially dangerous. In Zanzibar, their planes were shot at and they witnessed rebels lighting

638-470: Is Italian for ' world ' . The term shockumentary is also used to describe the genre. Mondo films began to soar in popularity in the 1960s with the releases of Mondo Cane (1962), Women of the World (1963) and Africa Addio (1966). The genre arguably reached its peak with Faces of Death (1978), a film that inspired a myriad of imitators, such as Banned from Television , Death Scenes , and

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696-438: Is an Italian language version, with a clear soundtrack and legible English subtitling. IMDb lists the different runtimes for previously released versions: USA- 122'; Norway- 124'; and Sweden- 116'. Praise was usually directed at the film's music and visuals, as well as the courage of the filmmakers to deliver such unique and risky footage to the world, especially of massacres that would have been covered up. Africa Addio features

754-603: Is documented. The film ends with the narrator describing the African penguin on the Cape of Good Hope , and how they ended up stranded in Africa when the chunk of ice they were on melted. Now strangers in a strange land, these penguins simply try to survive the violent waters as the dark continent grows hotter and more hostile towards them. The film was shot over the course of three years across most of sub-Saharan Africa. Most notably,

812-490: Is drowned by a mob. Soon after, the filmmakers are dragged out of their car violently, with the soldiers preparing to shoot them, but when the soldiers see the filmmakers’ Italian passports, they are released because they “aren’t whites, they’re Italians”. On 26 June 1964, during the civil war in Congo , formerly exiled president of the secessionist State of Katanga , Moïse Tshombe , returns to Léopoldville and promises to fix

870-669: Is in fact the fifth film in the series) lifts from other films (including Death Scenes and Death Faces IV ). In 1993, Hurricane Pictures edited a mix of scenes featured in Addio ultimo uomo and Shocking Africa , labeling it the "fifth chapter" of the saga ( Teil V in German). Several imitators followed the Faces of Death series; many used (or were composed entirely of) footage from other mondo films . South Asians Ethnic groups in South Asia are ethnolinguistic groupings within

928-422: Is nevertheless considered to be a very important film in the history of documentary filmmaking. The documentary begins with the narrator (Gualtiero Jacopetti) explaining that the Africa of the past has forever disappeared following decolonisation and the withdrawal of Europeans from the continent, and he explains that a new Africa is emerging. The narrator claims that just as America was built on death and violence,

986-456: Is no way off of the island. The filmmakers fly over the beach again the following day and find the bodies of all the villagers who tried to get to the ocean. The genocide claimed the lives of approximately 5,000 Arab and South Asian civilians. At Fort São Sebastião, one of the fortresses on the Ilha de Moçambique built by Vasco de Gama along the coast of Mozambique , Portuguese soldiers attend

1044-555: The Bootleg Death Tape series and Faces of Dying series from filmmaker Dustin Ferguson , which both involved various independent Directors from around the world. A number of films have parodied the genre. Examples include Ricardo Fratelli's Mondo Ford , Mr. Mike's Mondo Video by Saturday Night Live ' s Michael O'Donoghue , and Is There Sex After Death? by Jeanne and Alan Abel. Mondo Beyondo spoofed

1102-458: The Traces of Death and Faces of Gore series. Although earlier films such as Alessandro Blasetti's Europa di notte    [ it ] ( Europe By Night , 1959) and Luigi Vanzi's  [ it ] Il mondo di notte    [ it ] ( World By Night , 1961) may be considered examples of the genre, the origins of the mondo documentary are generally traced to

1160-878: The Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. The Andamanese (Sentinel, Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese) live in some of the Andaman Islands and speak a language isolate , as do the Kusunda in central Nepal, the Vedda in Sri Lanka, and the Nihali of Central India, who number about 5,000 people. The people of the Hunza Valley in Pakistan are another distinct population; they speak Burushaski ,

1218-788: The Jarawa people of the Andaman Islands . The largest ethnolinguistic group in South Asia are the Indo-Aryans, numbering around 1 billion, and the largest subgroup are the native speakers of Hindi languages , numbering more than 470 million. These groups are based solely on a linguistic basis and not on a genetic basis. Many South Asian ethnic groups and nationalities have substantial diasporas. See also Bangladeshi diaspora , Indian diaspora , Nepalese diaspora , Pakistani diaspora , Afghan diaspora , and . Two (or possibly three) other people groups have ethnic and linguistic ties with

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1276-527: The Mau Mau Uprising . One of the Mau Maus is arrested for the mass murder of an entire family of white farmers and their staff. After the massacre, 100 Mau Maus descended on the farm, tortured the animals and committed cannibalism . The surviving animals are euthanized out of mercy. The organizer of the crimes is sentenced to hard labor for life. In the present, these sentences are all commuted, and

1334-485: The United Artists Records soundtrack album. Prior to the film's release, allegations arose that a scene depicting the execution of a Congolese Simba Rebel was actually a murder done for the cameras. This resulted in co-director Gualtiero Jacopetti being arrested on charges of snuff filming . The film's footage was seized by police, and the editing process was halted during the legal proceedings. He

1392-703: The "Savage Trilogy". Prosperi also produced the films. Climati and Morra were known for staging scenes. The 1978 Faces of Death popularized a mondo style known as "death films", which depicted humans or animals dying in graphic ways. Uwe Schier bought the rights to the Mondo Cane and Faces of Death films and released his own entries in both series, consisting largely of footage lifted from other mondo films . Faces of Death 5 draws heavily on Death Scenes ; Faces of Death 6 consists almost entirely of Days of Fury and Mondo Cane IV (not to be confused with Mondo Cane 2000, l'Incredibile , Schier's Mondo Cane IV

1450-491: The 1962 Italian film Mondo Cane ( A Dog's World —a mild Italian profanity ) by Paolo Cavara , Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi which was a commercial success. Documentary films imitating Mondo Cane in the 1960s often included the term mondo in their titles, even if they were in English; examples include Mondo Bizarro , Mondo Daytona , Mondo Mod , Mondo Infame and Mondo Hollywood . Films outside

1508-426: The 2003 documentary The Godfathers of Mondo , Prosperi argues that the criticism was due to the fact that, "The public was not ready for this kind of truth." Jacopetti says that the film “was not a justification of colonialism, but a condemnation for leaving the continent in a miserable condition.” The two men next collaborated on the film Addio Zio Tom , which explored the horrors of American racial slavery . It

1566-578: The African governments accuse the Americans of unlawfully interfering in their affairs. At a Catholic mission northeast of Stanleyville, on the border of Congo and Sudan, more than 100 nuns, priests and children are held by a band of rebels who control the Ituri Rainforest . They promise to kill their hostages if a rescue attempt is made, and even though the government does not attempt rescue,

1624-522: The colonialists have left? The advertising spells it out for us: "Raw, wild, brutal, modern-day savages!" US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg condemned the film as "grossly distorted" and "socially irresponsible," noting the protests of five African UN delegates. In West Germany, a protest movement against the film emerged after Africa Addio was awarded by the state-controlled movie rating board . The protest

1682-451: The directors of Mondo Cane in 1962. Africa Addio documents the end of the colonial era in Africa , and the violence and chaos that followed. The film was a huge success, which ensured the viability of the so-called "Mondo film" genre, a cycle of "shockumentaries"—documentaries featuring sensational topics. The film encountered criticism and praise due to its controversial content, but

1740-411: The diverse populations of South Asia , including the countries of Bangladesh , Bhutan , India , Maldives , Nepal , Pakistan , and Sri Lanka . Afghanistan is variously considered to be a part of both Central Asia and South Asia, which means Afghans are not always included among South Asians, but when they are, South Asia has a total population of about 2.04 billion. The majority of

1798-438: The early 1980s. They made five films in all, tying Jacopetti and Prosperi as the most prolific mondo film producers. Each film examines brutal and bizarre behavior on the African continent. Their films are considered some of the most graphic mondo films ever made. Antonio Climati , cinematographer to Prosperi and Jacopetti in many mondo films , joined Mario Morra in 1974 to produce their own string of mondo films , known as

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1856-543: The entire mission is massacred anyway. On 22 October 1964, Rhodesian troops and mercenaries attack Boende and liberate a convent from rebels who were attempting to kill everyone there. An unarmed Simba rebel is summarily executed by firing squad. The movie features a controversial scene of a mercenary officer executing another unarmed Simba rebel who allegedly burned 27 children alive in a school. Soon after, Tshombe returns to exile. Finally, in South Africa, apartheid

1914-493: The explicitly shocking title Africa: Blood and Guts , was re-released in 1970 by Jerry Gross' company Cinemation Industries . Some 40 minutes were cut out, mainly traces of political context; it was edited and translated without the approval of Jacopetti. The differences are such that Jacopetti has said this film is "a betrayal of the original idea”. IMDb lists the total runtime as 140 minutes. A 'complete' version on YouTube runs closest to that at 138 minutes, 23 seconds. This

1972-466: The film are real and that nothing was ever staged. In the documentary The Godfathers of Mondo , Jacopetti and Prosperi stressed that the only scenes they ever staged were in Mondo Cane 2 . In the same documentary, Prosperi described their filmmaking philosophy: “Slip in, ask, never pay, never reenact.” Former Zanzibari revolutionaries have denied the authenticity of the film's scenes of massacred Arabs in Zanzibar . Mondo film The term mondo

2030-450: The film features footage from the Congo , Tanganyika , Zanzibar , Angola , Kenya and South Africa . The documentary also includes some behind-the-scenes footage from the 1964 film Zulu . Production was done on 35mm , a rarity for documentaries, which were almost always shot on 16mm at the time. Even more unique was the filmmakers' use of 2-perf Techniscope film. This gave the film

2088-400: The films' approach to titling, but was a parody of satellite television. The Italian cannibal film is arguably an offshoot of the mondo film. The original mondo film series was the Mondo Cane series by Gualtiero Jacopetti , Paolo Cavara , and Franco Prosperi. When this type of film proved successful, many imitators followed. The pair's Mondo candido (1975) is not a mondo film ;

2146-533: The gay subculture ( Mondo Rocco ). Russ Meyer 's film Mondo Topless was one of the few "documentaries" restricted to the old midnight movie circuit in the pre-VCR era; it explored strip clubs in 1960s San Francisco , at a time when strip clubs were a novelty in the United States, restricted to centers of port-city decadence (such as San Francisco). Other examples of this genre include Mondo New York by Harvey Keith, Mondo di Notte by Gianni Proia and Mondo Balordo by Roberto Bianchi Montero. The 1980s saw

2204-473: The genre followed suit: Mondo Trasho , Mondo Weirdo: A Trip to Paranoia Paradise , Mondo Keyhole and Mondo Brutale (a German release of Wes Craven 's The Last House on the Left ) title themselves mondo , although none are mondo documentaries . Later in the decade, this naming convention began to fall out of favour and fewer mondo films identified themselves as such in their titles. The War Game ,

2262-581: The heinous crime. The waters of the Kwoni send the corpses downstream, and for days fishermen work to remove the bodies so their drinking water isn’t contaminated. The bodies are moved onto the beach and burned in a mass grave. Thousands of refugees attempt to flee to Uganda. At dawn on 25 February 1964 in Uganda, “operation cropping” begins after the British leave once more and the African government declares that

2320-794: The middle of the Bugesera invasion in Rwanda during January 1964, the Watusi are pursued by the Bantu rebels after anti-Watusi propaganda was pushed by the Chinese for political purposes. In two months, the Bantu massacre 18,000 Watusi. On the banks of the Kagera River , 54 amputated hands are found by authorities near a tree that was used as a makeshift chopping block. 25 Bantu guerillas are arrested for

2378-400: The morgues overflow with corpses and the bodies have to be laid on the street. In Dar es Salaam , president Nyere has gone into hiding because mutinous army troops have taken over the city. Crowds block the bodies of slaughtered Arabs from the camera. Arab shops and houses are destroyed by rioting civilians and Arabs are lined up against a wall and shot. An Arab attempting to flee into the sea

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2436-429: The music used in the film was later released. The composer was Riz Ortolani (who had scored Mondo Cane that featured the tune later used for the hit single More ). When making Africa Addio , lyrics were added to Ortolani's title theme, making a song called "Who Can Say?" that was sung by Jimmy Roselli . The song did not appear in the film, but (unlike the successful song More spawned by Mondo Cane ) did appear on

2494-471: The national parks will be for hunting. Countless animals, formerly protected, are hunted for their meat. On 25 March 1964 at Murchison Falls National Park , elephants are hunted. On 3 April 1964 at Queen Elizabeth National Park , hippopotamus are hunted and hundreds of hippo skulls are shown covering a beach. In an attempt to stop the spread of buzzards, the rotting corpses are destroyed with grenades. In Bagamoyo , Tanganyika , so many Arabs are killed that

2552-421: The natives celebrate the British relinquishing control and allowing them to establish their own government. Celebrations start with fireworks but end with mobs of locals destroying imported goods from European countries or African colonies that have not yet gained independence, such as Portuguese eggs and South African oranges and beer. A flashback shows Kenyan colonial court proceedings against participants in

2610-559: The new post-colonial Africa is undergoing a similar process. In the Italian-language version, the narrator states that the film will not provide a moral judgement regarding the events in Africa. In the English-language version, the narrator states that the film will not tell its audience what to think about these events, but rather that the viewer will have to make their own conclusions about what they see. In Kenya ,

2668-603: The northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka and a small pocket of Pakistan. The Iranic peoples also have a significant presence in South Asia, the large majority of whom are located in Afghanistan and the northwestern and western parts of Pakistan. Minority groups not falling within either large group mostly speak languages belonging to the Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman language families, and largely live around Ladakh and Northeast India , Nepal, Bhutan, and

2726-596: The only known combat footage of the Congo Mercenaries, and the only known visual evidence of the genocide of ethnic Arabs during the Zanzibar Revolution. In Italy, it won the 1966 David di Donatello award for producer Angelo Rizzoli . Some conservative publications, such as Italy's Il Tempo , praised the film. In 1968 at the Carnival of Viareggio , a float inspired by the film was part of

2784-529: The parade. It was made by the master of papier-mâché, Il Barzella. Some items from this float, along with other memorabilia including a copy of the book by John Cohen, are kept in Museum of Dizionario del Turismo Cinematografico in Verolengo . Many commentators, however, accused the film of racism and misrepresentation. Jacopetti and Prosperi responded to critics of the film by defending their intentions. In

2842-559: The perpetrators given land formerly owned by whites. In the White Highlands area, many white farmers, unwilling to remain without the protection of their governments, sell their farms at a loss and prepare to leave the continent forever. The lawns and gardens of their homes are then bulldozed by the new owners to make way for more farmland. The coffins of dead homeowners are exhumed and are taken by their families to be buried again on another continent. Armies of poachers descend on

2900-652: The political situation in the Congo by leading the Simba rebellion . Rebel forces, armed with bows and believing that a magic spell makes them invulnerable to enemy bullets, go into battle against the Belgians while high on drugs and are massacred. On 24 November 1964, five months after Tshombe took over Stanleyville , during Operation Dragon Rouge , 320 Belgian paratroopers retake the city in ten minutes, resulting in seven thousand rebels fleeing before they can continue their massacres. The paratroopers and white mercenaries force

2958-558: The population fall within three large linguistic groups : Indo-Aryan , Dravidian , and Iranic . These groups are also further subdivided into numerous sub-groups, castes and tribes. Indo-Aryans form the predominant ethnolinguistic group in India ( North India , East India , West India , and Central India ), Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. Dravidians form the predominant ethnolinguistic group in southern India ,

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3016-466: The rebels to bury the victims of a massacre which resulted in 12,000 black enemies of the revolution being tortured, killed and eaten, 80 children being burned alive, 74 whites killed, and four white nurses raped. In addition, nine nuns, seven missionaries and four white children were tied together and shot in the mouths and their livers eaten. Thousands of white civilians are rescued by the Belgians and mercenaries that were transported on American planes, and

3074-715: The savanna, now no longer protected as wildlife preserves. Hundreds of animals, including many elephants, are killed for their pelts and ivory. The British still do their best to protect the wildlife, by moving wildlife preserves and giving medical care to injured baby animals who were orphaned by poachers. A poaching operation is stopped by authorities, and they discover that the poachers had used grenades to kill 300 baby elephants. Hundreds of rotting animals, mainly zebras and gazelles, that had been killed and left by poachers must be burned by authorities for health reasons. In Zanzibar during its revolution , rebels target Arab civilians as revenge for Sultanate oppression that occurred almost

3132-428: The title was imposed on them by the studio, who wished to cash in on their earlier successes. The film is a retelling of Voltaire 's novel, Candide . In the late 1980s, Stelvio Massi (a.k.a. Max Steele) made two spinoffs of the original Mondo Cane series, known as Mondo Cane 3 and Mondo Cane 4 on video. In 1969, brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni began to make a series of their own mondo films until

3190-456: Was acquitted after he and co-director Franco E. Prosperi produced documents proving they had arrived at the scene just before the execution took place. A tie-in book with the same title, written by John Cohen, was released by Ballantine to coincide with the film's release. Various cuts of the film have appeared over the years. The Italian and French versions were edited and were provided with narration by Jacopetti. The American version, with

3248-545: Was chiefly organized by the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) and groups of African students. In West Berlin, the distributor resigned from showing the film after a series of demonstrations and damage to cinemas. Although the filmmakers strongly denied that anything in the film was staged, widespread rumors have claimed that various scenes are inauthentic, and were staged for entertainment purposes. Jacopetti has repeatedly stated that all images in

3306-403: Was intended (in part) to combat the charges of racism leveled against them following the release of Africa Addio . (Their film about US history was also criticized for perceived racism). Film directors Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas harshly criticized the film in their manifesto Toward a Third Cinema (1970), calling Jacopetti a fascist . They said that in the film, man is "viewed as

3364-515: Was purported by viewers to feature at its end the brutal execution of a young Arab rapist by public rectal impalement. This episode was, however, believed to have been a staged execution by some viewers. Mondo films in the 21st century feature gore, exemplified by the Faces of Gore and Traces of Death series. There is less fake footage, and many use news footage of accidents from East Asia . The late 2010s saw another resurgence, beginning with

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