African Apocalypse

{{Short description|2020 documentary by Rob Lemkin}}

{{EngvarB|date=October 2020}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}

{{Infobox film

| name = African Apocalypse

| image =

| alt =

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = {{ubl|Rob Lemkin}}

| producer = {{ubl| Geoff Arbourne; Rob Lemkin; David Upshal }}

| writer = {{ubl|Femi Nylander|Rob Lemkin}}

| starring = {{plainlist|

• Femi Nylander
• Toby Stephens
• Stéphane Cornicard
• Pierre Mignard
• Christophe Hespel
• Philippe Smolikowski
• Amina Weira
• Boubacar Assan Midal}}

| music = Tunde Jegede;
Sunara Begum

| cinematography = {{ubl|Claude Garnier}}

| editing = David Charap

| studio = Inside Out Films and LemKino Pictures

| released = {{Film date|df=yes|2020|10|16|LFF}}

| runtime = 88 minutes

| country = {{ubl|Niger|United Kingdom}}

| language = {{ubl|English|French|Hausa}}

| budget =

| gross =

}}

African Apocalypse is a 2020 documentary film directed and produced by Rob Lemkin. It features Femi Nylander and was produced by Geoff Arbourne and David Upshal. The film portrays a journey from Oxford, England, to Niger on the trail of a colonial killer called Captain Paul Voulet. Voulet’s descent into barbarity mirrors that of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Nylander discovers that Voulet’s massacres happened at exactly the same time when Conrad wrote his book in 1899. In Niger, Nylander meets Nigerien communities along the route of Voulet’s trail who have lived with the legacy of his destruction.

The film was broadcast by the BBC in May 2021 as an episode of the Arena documentary series.{{cite web |title=Arena: African Apocalypse |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wgw9 |website=BBC|date=2021 |access-date=10 August 2021}}

Among other critical attention it received,{{cite web|url=https://africanapocalypsefilm.com/reviews/|title=News and reviews|website=African Apocalypse|access-date=8 November 2024}} African Apocalypse was described by Phil Hoad in The Guardian as a "fascinating historical documentary-cum-personal journey. ...[Nylander] is doing invaluable work here, disinterring another collectively obscured tragedy and presenting it back to Europe as part of a long-overdue revision of colonialism."{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/30/african-apocalypse-review|title=Review {{!}} African Apocalypse review – startling journey into Niger's heart of darkness|newspaper=The Guardian|first=Phil|last=Hoad|date=30 October 2020}}