Kilimanjaro

At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.

A British artist misses his parents' wedding anniversary for a last-minute sketching commission in Cornwall, but memories of them affect his work along the way.

Writer Harry Street reflects on his life as he lies dying from an infection while on safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Mashoto’s life in the city is a hustle. It’s a fast life in the fast city of Dar es Salaam. There’s no time to stop and Mashoto likes it this way. There’s no time to think about the people he left behind in the village. Until silence cuts through the city racket with three words: mother has died. With those words Mashoto’s life changes forever. He returns home, to the place he abandoned, to bury his only ally. Yet his mother has left behind a gift. Her voice, her unseen presence, a gentle whisper urging him to open his eyes and strain his ears- to learn the lessons of nature, of the earth and the roots that draw their nourishment from it. Cast out by his father after losing the little money his mother had left, Mashoto must learn to survive from the land. He must learn to face old enemies and forge new alliances, to fight and to love. Most of all, Mashoto must discover what it is he is fighting for.

An American woman doctor comes to Tanzania to work at a hospital for the mentally disturbed, with her Tanzanian lover. There, she meets a sometimes catatonic patient, Samahe, who seems to be in communication with another reality. In their confrontation with their individual and collective pasts, Dr Asira and Samehe are bound by fears and half remembered images of unbearable pain. Only through the spirit of Maangamizi, can the women resume their lives with an understanding of the ancestors and their eternal presence in a world of cruelty, hatred and death. It is a story that seeks to reclaim the connection between Africa and her Diaspora, and one that dares to represent the histories of two continents as it peels away layers upon layers of pain to bring healing of the soul.

Africa in the sixties. The Nile perch, a ravenous predator, is introduced into Lake Victoria as a scientific experiment, causing the extinction of many native species. Its meat is exported everywhere in exchange for weapons, creating a globalized evil alliance on the lake shores. An infernal nightmare in the real world that wipes out Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

Follows five trekkers and a local Chagga guide to the top of Kilimanjaro, the largest freestanding mountain in the world. Along their journey this diverse group of trekkers encounter strange landscapes and endure harsh conditions as they travel through five climate zones ranging from the lower rainforest reaches of Kilimanjaro to the summit's arctic glaciers.

In the remote and forgotten wilderness of Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania, one of nature's last great mysteries unfolds: the birth, life and death of a million crimson-winged flamingos.

Nine famous faces are pushed to their physical and emotional limits in a valiant attempt to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, to raise money for Comic Relief and help change lives this Red Nose Day, with their turmoil and triumphs revealed in Kilimanjaro: The Bigger Red Nose Climb.