This issue, devoted to varia, offers an array of articles on both subjects covered by this journal, namely African films and Diasporas. It confirms the importance of languages and cultures in people daily lives and illustrates the bond between cinematographic productions and those cultures. It equally confirms the power of the screen and visual arts in attracting attention to challenges facing African nations and denouncing societal evils. From the Mahgreb to Nigeria, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, it also retraces a network of images, beliefs and similarities. Under the title: the fate of Igbo People in Diaspora and the survival of the Igbo Nation: Insights from Igbo Students Association, Delta State University, Abraka, Anyanwu’s article considers the issue of language as it affects both Nigeria and its diaspora, adding to previous publications on the subject. Nigerians’ reluctance to use and promote their national and regional languages has already been stressed. Focusing on Igbo language and culture, Anynwu interviewed a number of students from Delta State University, Abraka, on the subject, with the view to verify the hypothesis that Igbo language is being neglected. His findings confirm earlier reports and publications noting that many Igbo, growing up outside Igboland, never studied their first language and are reluctant to use it in conversation, even at home. The majority would rather speak English, Pidgin or Yoruba, depending on where they were domiciled. Only a few could speak or write it without difficulty. This study, based on interviews and focusing on young adults, adds to the growing number of calls for a renewed attention to the teaching, learning and promotion of Nigerian languages and to the many cultures of the federation. Gloria Chimeziem Ernest-Samuel’s study of Tunde Kelani’s film, Dazzling Mirage, offers yet another excellent illustration of the ‘edutainment’ mission of Nollywood. Kelani, a well-known and internationally acclaimed Yoruba filmmaker, challenges his society to face one of Nigeria’s – and Africa’s – yet unresolved health challenges, that of sickle cell anemia, a “chronic disease characterized by poor quality of life with end-organ failure and acute intermittent medical emergencies” (Buchanan et al., 2010:S54). This 2015 film directed and produced by Tunde Kelani, centers around Funmi, a working-class sickle cell patient, who succeeds in rising above her condition following her doctor’s recommendation of a sickle cell support group. The film educates the viewer that, although not a curable disease, SCD is medically manageable if the patient is well monitored and given required medical attention. An interesting twist to this film is that, having been adapted from a novel, it encompasses art, literature and a narrative, and succinctly exposes how humanities as an academic discipline assists in sharing and upholding medical knowledge and education, enhancing medical and health services and delivery. The role played by NGOs and the difficulties encountered in transcultural encounters is highlighted in Francoise Ugochukwu’s article, which investigates the relationship developed in the early twenty-first century by the British charity ‘Stepping Stones Nigeria’ (SSN) with the people of one of Nigeria’s southern States, Akwa Ibom. The two documentaries filmed by the charity in Nigeria, shown on the BBC in 2008-2009, sparked a vicious controversy which soon centred around The End of the Wicked (1999), a film produced by a Nigerian pastor from Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria, Helen Ukpabio to denounce the practice of witchcraft, and a short video clip purported to be a copy of the film but made by cutting a tiny portion of the film and changing its focus. The repeated verbal attacks on Ukpabio, encouraged by SSN which launched a petition against her on their websites in a bid to prevent her from holding crusades in Akwa Ibom in 2009, had a profound impact on the Akwa Ibom society. SSN later decided to further explore the use of films in the fight against child abuse, and, persuaded of the role played by religious leaders in a country known to be highly religious, commissioned a typical Nollywood film. The Fake Prophet, which benefitted from the close-knit cooperation between the British charity and the film director in the building of the storyline, went on to carry its message to every home and church in Nigeria and throughout the Nigerian Diaspora. Peace Mukwara’s article on “Zimbabwean videofilms: filmmaking praxis from below”, examines the filmmaking practices of selected Zimbabwean videofilmmakers from concept to post-production in order to explore how they ‘negotiate’, ‘appropriate’, ‘contaminate’ and ‘violate’ mainstream conventional filmmaking modes. The paper analyses several popular Zimbabwean videofilms, examining the processes of production, interacting with the filmmakers, highlighting issues such as improvisation and piracy, and attempting to understand how they organize themselves in order to come out with low budget productions. This fieldwork-based investigation of the Zimbabwean film production, supported by a number of interviews, enriches research on the budding but fast developing African cinema. Ernest-Samuel, Gloria Chimeziem Ernest-Samuel and Salome Obiageli Ike’s contribution offers a timely and original suggestion concerning the current scourge which plagues the region at the intersection of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon. “Towards humanizing counter-terrorism in Africa: ¨lessons from Conscripted” focuses on the role which films could play in the fight against terrorism. While many investigations have been carried out on Boko Haram, The emergence of the Fulani herdsmen generated another form of anxiety and controversy. ). It is feared that the Nigerian Government’s laissez-faire attitude to the activities of the terrorist group and their intermittent and successful attacks on Nigerians may make it difficult for one to claim that Nigeria will win a counter-terrorism war in the near future. Incidentally, Nollywood does not have many cultural productions on terrorism, in spite of the growing prevalence of terrorism in Nigeria. This highlight the importance of this study of Conscripted, a 2017 production directed by Paul Apel Papel, a in-depth presentation of the challenges confronting security operatives in a developing nation like Nigeria. The issue ends with a review of Lynn Schler’s remarkable book: Nation on Board –Becoming Nigerian at Sea (Athens: Ohio University Press 2016), based on an extensive study of maritime archives consulted in London, Liverpool, Lagos and Amsterdam, and on forty-four interviews of Nigerian sailors, navy captains, engineers, trade unionists and administrators, recorded between 2007 and 2011. The book, punctuated with an impressive number of testimonies, evaluates the impact of the gradual handover from the British to the Nigerians, on sailors’ daily life at sea and at home. Its author’s well documented research produced what can be best described as a gripping journal recounting the travels and chance encounters of these unskilled Nigerian laborers and adding to international research on the last days of colonization and the changes it brought to Nigeria.