For the tenth anniversary of its film festival, Swiss organisation Norient has brought together a selection of films about music and culture from around the world. The festival’s online edition continues from 19–21 February, with most films available to stream online. Ben Verghese reviews a selection of films from the festival below. Visit nff-bern.ch for a full programme.

The thought of sitting in a Swiss cinema in Bern or Lausanne, rather than at home, carried much appeal, therefore my partner and I set out to encounter this film festival by going along with the organisers’ curated blocks.

To begin, Block 1: Tradition, Religion + Protestation, featuring films identified as being from (or filmed in) Mali, Kenya and Ghana. In the first of these, It Must Make Peace, it is Afel Bocoum, sitting with his guitar, whose voice welcomes us in speech then song. A student of Ali Farka Touré, Bocoum lays out the film’s central framework: the struggles of musicians to make a living through music yet their insistence and persistence in doing so despite the threat(s) of Islamic fundamentalism. The film, directed by Paul R Chandler and released in 2017, was produced by non-profit organisation Instruments4Africa. Filmed over three years, it documents dozens of Malian musicians in a variety of small or large groups and contrasting styles. Amid epic views we learn of the importance, disappearances, histories and specifics of indigenous instruments, for example the three-stringed Mandinka bolon.

One important role of the instruments, and by extension the musicians (or is it the other way around?), is the passing on and writing of history through playing, the vocation of griots. This generational learning, handing over of knowledge, stories and skills, manifests in one of Mali's most renowned musical lineages, the Diabaté family. Sitting in their studio, kora player Toumani and his eldest son, Sidiki, make a brief appearance. They duet to perform their original composition “Lampedusa”, explaining how they wrote it to keep in memory the 300 African people who drowned off the Italian island in 2013.

Now in in his thirties, Sidiki's background in music is as a hiphop artist as well as a kora player. Contemporary Malian hiphop artists also appear in the film, and one of its most breathtaking moments is conscious rapper Mylmo N-Sahel's history lesson in song. N-Sahel says: “I am poor child. I come from a poor family. So I know the problems of the poor. So I need to talk about it.” Backed by two traditional instruments (a calabash and djeli n'goni), in four minutes he raps a narrative spanning pre-colonial to colonial times, then from Mali's independence in 1960 to a decline that switches from socialism to dictatorships, democracy and now jihadis.

More awesome scenes in It Must Make Peace come with the puppetry of Cultural Troupe of Quartier Thierola. Accompanied by the Markala singers, the movement of dancing puppeteers under gigantic animal costumes is enthralling. The creations bring to mind scenes from the Barrydale Puppet Parade, also in West Africa albeit in the far south, in a Klein Karoo town in Western Cape, South Africa. Have the Handspring Puppet Trust and uKwanda Puppetry and Design Collective seen Quartier Thierola's work?

Tensions around religious practices are the theme of the next few films in this group. Tapi!, a short film directed by Jim Chuchu of the Nairobi based Nest Collective addresses The Witchcraft Act, legislation first imposed under British colonial rule in 1925 then revised by the Kenyan government in 2012 under duress from conservative lobbyists. Captivating in its quick movements, Tapi! faces up to the big questions around ways in which spiritual practices are systematically erased.

The grip of aggressive Christianity over much of the population is a reality also questioned in Contradict: Ideas For A New World. This is highlighted in a written response to the film published on the Norient website by Grace Takyi, an academic specialising in Ghanaian and African popular music. “Growing up in Ghana,” writes Takyi, “feels like being programmed to God and Christianity by default.” M3NSA and Wanlov The Kubolor of FOKN Bois have consistently refused such programming, whether in their satirical work together or in solo projects. Contradict introduces the pair in 2013 then revisits them in 2017. We see their shifts into community and video projects in addition to their own music-making. Whereas Wanlov and M3NSA, a brilliant beatmaker and producer as well as rapper, have been active for a good decade, Contradict also casts light on younger, lesser-known artists including Mutombo Da Poet and Adomaa. Listening to Adomaa find her voice, I found myself wondering if the feminist work of elders Ama Ata Aidoo and the late Efua Sutherland are informing her politics and growth.

I have been wanting to see Contradict, directed by Peter Guyer and Norient director/founder Thomas Burkhalter, since first hearing about it. I was curious to see how it sits alongside the two FOKN Bois Coz Ov Moni films as well as Pastor Paul, directed by Jules David Bartkowski in 2015 with co-writing from Wanlov, Adam Abada, and polymath Funsho Ogundipe. Contradict is compelling, no doubt, and yet, perhaps in the way the film makers remain off-camera, unseen and unheard – an act that reinscribes the invisibility of whiteness – it continues something of a problematic ethnomusicology approach. The same can be said for It Must Make Peace. In contrast, Pastor Paul satirises this familiar scene of cheerful white-presenting person visiting a part of Africa to record its cultural production. The figure of modern day Hugh Traceys is one that requires debate beyond this text. For now, words of Fred Moten on Alan Lomax come back to mind: “Lomax's own interventions, they are deeply problematic. But, at the end of the day I'm still so glad that I have access to that music...”

Before moving on, a few further reflections on Block 1. What comes when Toumani Diabaté's statement of how “the West knows about [only] five per cent of Africa” merges with Wanlov's comment on tonality having been colonised by white Europeans? Thinking with these quotes while picturing, and hearing, the range of so-called traditional instruments, they prompt thought on what is meant when we talk of technology. Here, words of Mark Fisher echo back: “who dares to dissent from the gospel of Silicon Valley?” Lastly, how does Mutombo Da Poet calling out the military aggression of US imperialism sit with the funding of It Must Make Peace being by the US State Department?

On to Block 2: Sound Cities... Beirut + Baltimore. Showcasing a wealth of superb dancers and music makers in Baltimore, Dark City: Beneath The Beat provides a brief history of club music and associated uplift work of community groups Bmore Than Dance and Sisters Saving the City. The first feature length film by Tedra Wilson (aka TT The Artist), whose previous directorial experience was making her own music videos, it opens with a sequence that evokes the brilliance of Lil Buck's dance moves which begin the Spike Lee joint Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus. Wilson, who also appears in the film, expands on her narrative and personal journey from south Florida to Baltimore and on to Los Angeles, in a Q&A with Lisa Blanning, a former Wire editor, on Norient's website. Blanning has also written a short text in which she charts connections between dance/music in Baltimore and other cities in the US. Of the three feature length films detailed above, each follows a musical documentary format interspersing narration and footage of the places/spaces with regular musical performances. They each come with a serious or critical thesis. In contrast Les Contes De Cockatoo (directed by Varnish La Piscine and Rhony Sutriesno) is essentially an extended music video for Swiss hiphop label Colors Records playing out through the guise of a stylised sci-fi comedy. Forming part of Block 3: Flat Broke, Protest + Celebrate, the Wes Anderson-style locations and slick editing help compensate for casual violence and dodgy plotlines.

Markedly different again and sombre rather than silly is None Of Your Business (2019). This brilliantly made but heartbreaking portrait of the late guitarist, songwriter and poet Ebrahim Monsefi involves director Kamran Heidari using a variety of reenactments: archive performances of Monsefi; a deep-voiced narrator speaking as if the film's deceased protagonist; significant life events restaged in their relevant locations; new renditions of the popular songwriter's songs performed by admiring musicians across the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas and inland in Ilud. Witnessing the effect of music and lyrics written by Ebram (as Monsefi was fondly known) affirms the film as the headline selection for Block 4: The Power Of Songs.

With Norient's core focus being on sound and contemporary music cultures, it perhaps goes without saying that the films' sound design, editing and mixing is on point. Although there are six more blocks plus more short films framed under the tag of specials to spend time with, my time to complete this review before the festival ends was limited. So alas, The Mystery Of The Pink Flamingo remains a mystery (in case you were wondering, it's in Block 10: The End Of The World: Cloud Rap, Noise + Kitsch). Fortunately the festival is on again this weekend, with films watchable on demand from Friday 19 until Sunday 21 February. Many, but unfortunately not all of them, are viewable worldwide. To view these films and the rest of the Norient programme, visit nff-bern.ch