Inevitably, in box sets collecting the works of a single director one film will overshadow the others. So it is with the four discs of The Claire Denis Collection, where 2009’s White Material expresses the temperament, texture and compositional style of a Denis film more effectively than its three companions. This doesn’t mean that White Material should be watched first, or that it’s better than Chocolat (1988), Nénette et Boni (1996) or Beau Travail (1999), just that it is the finest distillation of Denis to date.

Toumani Diabaté is the uncontested star of the Malian kora, but his Bamako neighbour Ballaké Sissoko is a close rival. His natural modesty, reflected in the coolness of his musicianship, has prevented him from acquiring the international status of Diabaté, but what he lacks in worldly ambition is amply compensated by an unassuming yet heart-warming spirituality.

For years there have been pundits predicting that just as our high street restaurants and football teams represent a much more globalised world, surely pop music would follow suit. Fifteen years ago my local high street had a Wimpy Bar, a curry house and a wine bar – now we have Vietnamese, Turkish, Keralan and Mexican eateries to name a few – and the street is much better for it. Pop music, though, has been clinging to its Anglo-Saxon power bases in the US and the UK (the language helps, of course).

Not the least interesting aspect of Give Us The Money, an examination of the effectiveness of famous pop stars campaigning to end poverty in Africa, was how historical it felt. Homing in specifically on Bob Geldof and Bono, who between then have spent decades hectoring the public, berating politicians and schmoozing billionaires with a view to alleviating the sufferings of millions of starving Africans, it was a glimpse into a lost world of stadium rock, furry non-HD video and political yesterday's men, like Gordon Brown and George W Bush.

The carriage swayed violently, sending a bottle of Perroni sliding across the Formica table top and into the quick hand of Malian guitarist Afel Bocoum. As we sped along, the sun sent flecks of light up the walls, across the ceiling, along the luggage racks and back down over assorted musicians who were sleeping, lounging, talking or playing music together in small groups. A green noise of trees and hedges blurred past our window, whilst barebacked hills seemed to stand completely still in the blue distance.

Take the day, and a stiff drink afterwards, as you’ll need it for this thoughtful and deeply disturbing exhibition. A picture, goes the cliché, is worth a thousand words, and nowhere more so than in this heartbreaking, beautiful and affecting anthology, which manages to speak with unparalleled directness, yet with nuanced subtlety.

A wondrous antidote to digital movies’ colonisation of the darkening continent of cinema, Miguel Gomes’s luminously black-and-white Tabu is a tripartite paean to the past: to the perils of Portuguese imperialism in Africa; to Hollywood silent movies as they transitioned to sound; to an adulterous affair that trapped its enraptured lovers for the remaining 50 years of their lives.

With the overwhelming acclaim that welcomed their first album, Très Très Fort, the musical paralympic champions Staff Benda Bilii faced a challenge with their second. Would their unusually stirring backstory as disabled polio victims and destitute street children in Kinshasa become a burden rather than a draw?

The most striking thing about the first photographic exhibition to specifically address post-revolution Libya is that there is no blood. Libya: A Nation Reborn is situated in the marbled ballroom of Tripoli’s five-star Corinthia Hotel – a long way from the dust, sweat and blood of the streets – and poignantly lays out the reality of the revolution. And its costs.

The North African desert blues, as played by Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen, may well be the most popular kind of “world music” amongst mainstream rock fans since South African township jive post-Paul Simon’s Graceland. However, this presents a problem in that it’s intrinsically a rather limited form and so there’s a risk that its audience may soon grow tired of those circling, intertwining guitars, that mid-tempo lope and those understated almost-spoken vocals that make up a typical song.