Set in the rolling hills of Zululand, rimmed by the Drakensberg Mountains, noble and dignified Yesterday spends each day toiling the scorched red earth and delighting in her daughter, Beauty. This film follows the life of an illiterate Zulu woman and mother named Yesterday who contracts HIV/Aids from her migrant husband worker who refuses to accept this and leaves her.

A stubborn cough forces Yesterday to the clinic, where she discovers that she has contracted HIV, a disease feared and reviled in her husband's aloof village where they live. When she confronts her husband, his violent rebuttal leaves her unsupported and with few choices. But Yesterday's greatest wish is to see her inquisitive daughter, Beauty go to school and her compassion, courage and indomitable character forces her to see this through, even when she knows that her time is running out.

An African-American journalist, Langston arrives to cover South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission with preconceived ideas. He does not believe that by exposing the unfathomable depths of human cruelty, the redemptive power of forgiveness will be all-healing. Langston decides to expose true demons by interviewing the notorious Colonel de Jager. One of the people he meets is Anna, an Afrikaans poet. Closeted from the insidious machinations of Apartheid, she is deeply shocked and horrified by the dissolute cruelty of her fellow citizens. Moved by the testimony of the hearings, Langston and Anna begin to both confront the darker side of their existence, and to question their sense of identity, responsibility and nationhood.

The world premiere of "Man to Man," opened this year's Berlin Festival. It's a historical epic starring Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas as 19th century adventurers searching for the link between man and ape in central Africa.

It was directed by Regis Wargnier of France and shot in South Africa, England and Scotland, underscored this year's focus on Africa at the Berlin festival.

Fiennes stars as a Scottish anthropologist, Jamie Dodd, who travels through the African rain forest in the 1870s accompanied by local hunters and an adventurer played by Scott Thomas. Convinced that he has found the evolutionary bridge between humans and apes in the indigenous population, he traps two pygmies and ships them home to Scotland.

"Man to Man" portrays the conflict that erupts between Dodd and his two scientific colleagues back home as Fiennes' character becomes emotionally attached to his captives and decides to free them. The other scientists played by Ian Glen and Hugh Bonneville view the Africans merely as specimens that will advance their careers.

Wargnier, whose film Indochine won the best foreign film Oscar in 1993, wrote the screenplay along with Ghanaian-born author William Boyd. The movie also stars Losama Boseki, a pygmy from the Central African Republic, and Cecile Bayiha from Cameroon as the two captured Africans.

In director Antoine Fuqua's new action-adventure film, Bruce Willis stars as Lieutenant A K Waters, the loyal veteran officer of a Navy Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) unit. Though fictional, Tears of the Sun deals with the gritty realism of human conflict as Lt. Waters travels to war-torn central Africa to rescue Dr Lena Kendricks, a U.S. citizen who runs a mission in the countryside. But when Lt. Waters arrives, Dr Kendricks refuses to abandon the refugees under her care. She implores Waters to escort them on a dangerous trek through the dense jungle to the nearby border. During the journey the SEALs find themselves the unwitting guardians of a man sought by the rebel militia. This further endangers their already hazardous mission, but all the while strengthening Waters' resolve to protect Lena and the refugees, and to deliver them safely across the border.