Spray Uzi, kings of Kenya’s nascent graffiti scene, are on a mission to show the world that there is more to Africa than child soldiers, emaciated babies and unaccountable despots.
These four artists have been invited to travel to Djibouti, to help with the renovation of a youth community centre. The trip will take them through Ethiopia, where they will join forces with local artists and youth organizations for a series of public art shows and installations.
Katy Fentress, a freelance journalist residing in Kenya, has decided to video-document the trip. She sees this as an innovative way to attempt to readjust some of the negative PR that Africa and Africans are subjected to.
The film will aim to be a playful way of conveying an important message that is often willfully ignored by the media and the global aid industry. This is a unique opportunity to show people across the world that we have spent too much time looking at Africans as if they are helpless victims.
Spraycan Safari aims to subvert the current understanding of Africa and Africans, by presenting us with a group of talented, savvy, modern youth, who do graffiti to brighten people’s surroundings and address some of the problems that we all face in society today.
By using graffiti/African street art as the backdrop around which the documentary will be framed, the aim is to speak to the younger generations. The ones that have been brought up on a diet of Mtv and jackass style television and who are enthusiastic about the idea of spray can art.
Spraycan Safari does not aim to revolutionize the world nor resolve the real and difficult hardship that is experienced by thousands of people in “developing” countries everyday. However Spray Uzi, the central characters of the documentary, are exactly the kind of role models that inspire their peers and give them scope to think that another future is possible.
Here is a great film that is nominated for and Academy Award for Best Animated Feature called Chico and Rita. The film is about Cuba in 1948. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love. Here is the trailer for the film:
Black film has been a hot topic in the Unites States: there is the love /hate of Tyler Perry, the difficulty of getting Black film into theaters and the poor reviews of Red Tails and the mixed review of Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer ( we can’t wait to see what the fuss is about). So this clip of Sam Greenlee speaking on Black filmmakers is perfect ( thanks to Shadow and Act for the heads up on this):
Sometimes, we need to take some time to relax with a good movie or just watch something interesting while doing paperwork. Here is a film directed by Nega Tariku about The story of an Ethiopian woman’s plight in South Africa as she struggles to earn enough money to support and return to her children in Ethiopia. Let’s call it a Black History month gift ! Enjoy:
Africa is a large, diverse continent with amazing musical styles that represent thousand of tribal cultures. Africa also has a strong Hip Hop, Pop, and new to many in the West, Punk Rock scene. Last Friday , Afropop gifted the world with the Punk in Africa download. The Punk in Africa download is the sound track to the documentary of the same name. Directed byKeith Jones and Deon Maas, Punk in Africa covers the development of Punk Rock scenes in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe and how they developed. The film has screened at 32nd Durban International Film Festival, MK Bushveld Cinema at Oppikoppi Music Festival and Festival do Rio. So enjoy download this soundtrack
The Miami International Film Festival runs March 2 to the 11. Sugarcane has chosen a few films that will be of interest to our readers. It seems if only one of the directors is African American, but the remaining films have Black casts or deal with the African Diaspora in the Spanish speaking Caribbean.
BARACOA, WHERE CUBA BEGAN: INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE. Baracoa, the oldest of Cuban cities, has just turned 500 years old. Trapped between the majestic Caribbean Sea and two prodigious rivers, this almost virginal paradise is an island within an island. It seems as if Fidel and Raúl Castro were unnecessary in the lives of Baracoa’s residents, bent on forgetting the vicissitudes that has left in its trail, in the greater island, the cataclysm of the Revolution.
Immune: This film by Andrew Lathrop is about a desperate composer risking a journey to find a missing piece of music.
Here is the trailer:
Motherland or Die: Vital Mansky’s documentary is about Cubans that love their homeland, but struggle to keep up with the reality of life under the regime. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE.
Pelotero: This documentary explores the intense pressure is placed on two talented teenage baseball players in the Dominican Republic as they train for a possible career with MLB. Narrated by John Leguizamo and directed by Jon Paley,
Ross Finkel, Trevor Martin.
The Beach Chronicles AGX: This animated short features the beloved Jo Marie Payton of “Family Matters” and is directed by Kevin Sharpley.
Superimposing an African imagination on filmmaking processes, the 5th Talent Campus Durban will ignite the creativity of 40 selected filmmakers from Africa in a series of masterclasses, workshops and industry networking opportunities during the Durban International Film Festival. Talent Campus Durban entices filmmakers to enhance skills, develop collaborations and interface with the dynamic future of the film industry in Africa, and the world.
The five-day programme also includes the 2nd edition of Doc Station, where selected documentary projects submitted by accepted talents will be finessed and packaged for presentation within the DOC Circle at the 3rd Durban FilmMart. Two Doc Station projects won PUMA.Mobility and PUMA.Creative prizes adjudicated by Channel 4 BRITDOC at last year’s Durban FilmMart.
A new addition this year is Talent Press, a mentoring programme for African film critics in collaboration with FIPRESCI and Goethe Institut. Talent Press will publish reviews and reports on the Talent Campus Durban and the festival films and events in general.
Held in co-operation with the Berlinale Talent Campus, and with support from the German Embassy of South Africa, Goethe Institut of South Africa, and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism, Talent Campus Durban runs from 20 to 24 July. Apart from the main event in Berlin, Talent Campus partnerships also take place at selected festivals in Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Tokyo and Sarajevo. Opportunities for participating talents are enhanced through Talent Campus networks and the Berlinale’s global information platform.
Africa is a great source of stories, and an innovative new wave is emerging from the multiple contexts and challenges of Africa, to tell these stories. Under this year’s theme of Africa Superimposed, Talent Campus Durban will add new layers of inspiration, and skills, to give impetus to this process, and with the talents of this vibrant gathering of filmmakers representing countries and cultures from around the continent, it is hoped that Africa will impose an ever-stronger presence on the world of filmmaking.
Application is open to filmmakers and critics who are resident in Africa. Applicants are encouraged to apply well before the deadline of 15 March in order to submit their work samples timeously.
Visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za or www.berlinale-talentcampus.de for submission regulations.
The 33rd Durban International Film Festival takes place from 21 to 29 July.The DIFF is organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal) with principal funding from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund and support from the National Film and Video Foundation, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism, and the City of Durban. Durban FilmMart is a partnership project between the Durban Film Office and the Durban International Film Festival.
A little more than a year ago, radical political and social changes in the Arab world were triggered by a series of mass uprisings and demonstrations. At times bloody, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were only the start. Gaddafi’s fall in Libya followed, as did unrest in other countries of the Maghreb and Mashreq. Civil war-like conditions still prevail in Syria today.
Social networks as well as the many films of these major protest movements and the ensuing violence have contributed substantially to the perception of these uprisings in the Arab world. Pictures from Tahrir Square in Cairo have already become a part of our collective visual memory.
The programme of the Berlinale 2012 addresses what has become known as the “Arab Spring”, and examines its developments from different perspectives and in a variety of forms:
There are documentary films that depict the region and recent events from the viewpoint of Arab directors and of filmmakers from other parts of the world. Though there are also fictional and documentary films by Arab directors that explore these regions without directly addressing the revolution. Instead they deal with crucial existential questions and the need to define their identity; in some cases this has been done with much humour. Besides the films screening in the different Berlinale sections, Arab cinema will be making a good showing at the European Film Market (EFM).
The Berlinale is also organising a number of panel discussions on the Arab world and filmmaking. Guests include writer Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco/France), filmmakers Mahmoud Hojeij (Lebanon) and Nadia El-Fani (Tunisia/France), filmmaker and journalist Mohamed Ali Atassi (Syria/Lebanon), artist and curator Maha Maamoun (Egypt), curator Sarah Rifky (Egypt), director and film activist Hala Al Abdallah (Syria/France), producer and filmmaker Hala Galal (Egypt), and producer Javier Bardem (Spain).
Berlinale Talent Campus – Panel discussions
Indie Filmmakers Guide to Cross-Media II:
Engaging 21st Century Audiences Across Multiple Platforms
With Jigar Mehta, video journalist,
Inga von Staden, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Germany),
Timo Vuorensola, director (Finland)
Moderated by Liz Rosenthal (founder and director of “Power to the Pixel”)
Beirut Calling: Contemporary Video Art from Lebanon
With Mahmoud Hojeij, director (Lebanon),
Ahmad Ghossein, director (Lebanon),
Gheith Al-Amine, director (Lebanon),
Moderated by Marcel Schwierin (filmmaker, curator, artistic director “Arab Shorts”)
Changing perspectives: The Arab World Defining Its Future
With Tahar Ben Jelloun, writer (Morocco/France),
Nadia El-Fani, filmmaker (Tunisia/France),
Viola Shafik, documentary film maker, film scholar, writer (Germany/Egypt)
Moderated by Vincenzo Bugno (WCF)
Supported by the Euromed Audiovisual Programme of the European Union
World Cinema Fund
On February 15, 2012, World Cinema Fund Day will address the topic “Filmmakers and the Arab Spring / Insurgency, Poetry and Engagement” in two panel discussions:
Focus Syria
With Hala Al Alabdallah, filmmaker, producer, film activist (Syria/France)
Mohamed Ali Atassi, filmmaker, journalist (Syria/Lebanon)
Alaa Karkouti, film journalist (Syria/Egypt)
Moderated by Vincenzo Bugno (WCF)
Documenting Revolution
With Hania Mroue, festival organiser, producer (Lebanon)
Nadia El Fani, filmmaker, (Tunisia/France)
Hala Galal, filmmaker, producer (Egypt)
Nora Younis, journalist, activist, blogger (Egypt) tbc
Moderated by Vincenzo Bugno (WCF)
Supported by the Euromed Audiovisual Programme of the European Union
Forum Expanded
Cairo: The City, the Images, the Archives
With Khalid Abdalla, actor, producer, co-founder of Zero Film Productions (Egypt),
Hala Galal, filmmaker, producer, director of SEMAT production & distribution, new director of Cinematheque Cairo (Egypt)
Maha Maamoun, artist, curator and co-founder of Contemporary Image Collective (Egypt)
Sarah Rifky, curator of Townhouse Gallery, founder of Cairo International Resource Center for Art, documenta 13 agent (Egypt)
Moderated by Marcel Schwierin
Forum Expanded Short Films
As they say by Hicham Ayouch, Morocco/United Arab Emirates
Bye Bye by Paul Geday, Egypt
King Lost His Tooth by Gheith Al-Amine, Lebanon
T.S.T.L. by Gheith Al-Amine, Lebanon
My father is still a communist – Intimate secrets to be published by Ahmad Ghossein, Lebanon/United Arab Emirates
Installations (Gutschow-Haus)
On Love and Other Landscapes
Palestine 2011
Yazan Khalili
Road Movie
Canada 2011
Elle Flanders, Tamira Sawatzky
Films in Panorama
Death For Sale by Faouzi Bensaïdi,
Belgium/France/Morocco/United Arab Emirates (funded by WCF)
Three young men living in Tétouan: Malik is in love with Dounia and wants to help her give up her job as a prostitute. Soufiane spends his days pilfering. Allal is a drug runner. The three friends hope that a raid on a jewellery shop will be their path to a new life.
In The Shadow of a Man by Hanan Abdalla, Egypt
In the wake of the Egyptian revolution four women describe events from their perspective and talk about what it means to be a woman in Egypt on the way to another life in a new society. A courageous, intimate and politically explosive portrait.
La Vierge, les Coptes et Moi (The Virgins, the Copts and Me)
by Namir Abdel Messeeh, France/Qatar/ Egypt (also screening at EFM)
Against the background of the recent Egyptian revolution the director explores the phenomenon of alleged appearances of the Virgin Mary to Coptic Christians. His sceptical search leads to a fictional reinterpretation of reality that turns his film into a comedy about documentary filmmaking.
My brother the Devil by Sally El Hosaini, United Kingdom
Two Arab brothers in London. Fourteen-year-old Mo idolises his nineteen-year-old brother Rashid, who is a gang member and drug dealer. When Rashid decides to lead a completely different life Mo has to face his own prejudices to save his brother’s life.
The Reluctant Revolutionary by Sean McAllister, Great Britain
Yemeni tour operator Kais is at first reluctant to get involved in the protests that engulf Sana’a in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. But when a friend is shot dead he too decides to rise up against the president and join the revolution.
Wilaya by Pedro Pérez Rosado, Spain
After living in Spain for sixteen years Fatimetu returns to the Saharan refugee camp where she lived as a child, and where she and her sister now find a way of earning a living together. But Fatimetu is torn between life in the desert and her memories of Spain.
Words of Witness by Mai Iskander, USA
This documentary follows a young Cairo journalist named Heba Afify. An impressive portrait of one woman’s attempt to give a voice to the new diversity of opinion in Egypt and struggle for her own place in society.
Forum
Al Juma Al Akheira (The Last Friday) by Yahya Alabdallah, Jordan/ United Arab Emirates
Taxi driver Yousef is forced to bring some order into his failed existence. This lovingly photographed film casts a laconic and occasionally humorous gaze on daily life in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Berlinale Special
Hijos de las nubes, La última colonia (Sons Of The Clouds, The Last Colony) – Documentary by Alvaro Longoria, Spain
The story of a forgotten colonial war in Western Sahara and the dedication of an internationally renowned actor. A documentary that examines the fate of a neglected people and explores the opaque and often callous paths of international diplomacy.
Followed by a discussion with director Alvaro Longoria and producer Javier Bardem.
Althawra… Khabar (Reporting … A Revolution) – Documentary by Bassam Mortada, Egypt
A film about the pivotal role played by independent media during the recent Egyptian revolution. Six journalists share their intense, shocking experiences – and admit to the impossibility of maintaining a neutral stance in the face of such brutal oppression.
Followed by a discussion with the director and other guests.
Films at the EFM
Documentaries:
In My Mother’s Arms by Mohamed Jabarah Al Daradji, Atia Jabarah Al UK/Iraq/Netherlands
El Gusto by Safinez Bousbia, Ireland
Half Revolution by Omar Shargawi, Karim El Hakim, Denmark
Gate #5 by Simon El Habre, Lebanon/Germany/Canada
Cinema Jenin by Markus Vetter, Germany/Israel
5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, The Netherlands/ France/Israel/Palestine
Feature films:
Rough Hands by Mohamed Asli, Morocco
My Brother the Devil by Sally El Hosaini, United Kingdom
How big is your Love by Fatma Zohra Zamoum, Algeria/Morocco
The Last Friday by Yahya Al-Abdallah Jordan/United Arab Emirates
Asmaa by Amr Salama, Egypt
The Rif Lover by Narjiss Nejjar, Morocco/France/Belgium
Films screening at the EFM as well as in one of the festival sections:
Panorama:
Death For Sale by Faouzi Bensaïdi
In The Shadow of a Man by Hanan Abdalla
La Vierge, les Coptes et Moi (The Virgins, the Copts and Me) by Namir Abdel Messeeh
Wilaya by Pedro Pérez Rosado
Words of Witness by Mai Iskander
Forum:
Al Juma Al Akheira (The Last Friday) by Yahya Alabdallah
Actor Nate Parker has teamed up with Bay Area author China Galland and son, filmmaker Ben Galland, to produce the documentary feature film, Resurrecting Love: The Cemetery That Can Heal a Nation – which documents the powerful racial conflict over the right to visit a cemetery in Marshall, Texas.
This film in-progress follows two women – one black, one white – as they rally the community to fight a large timber corporation, which is denying them access to the cemetery, and in the process, change the face of Texas history. Resurrecting Love shows us how a diverse group of people can come together to heal the deep racial divisions that still threaten to tear our country apart.
The film grew out of China Galland’s book, Love Cemetery, Unburying the Secret History of Slaves, which ignited a controversy about rights to visit cemeteries throughout Texas.
Nate Parker is the star of George Lucas’ Red Tails, the story of the WWII Tuskegee Airmen, which just premiered nationwide. He is also known for his starring role with Denzel Washington in The Great Debaters and The Secret Life of Bees.
After reading about the African American descendent community being locked out of their family burial ground and kept from their ancestor’s graves, he decided to take on the role of Executive Producer to help them finish this important documentary. He also established the Nate Parker scholarship fund for young African American men at historically black Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, where Wiley students help maintain Love Cemetery.
Of the 200 hours of footage shot over the past ten years, 80 hours of poignant interviews were completed, including interviews with Pulitzer Prize winner Professor Leon F. Litwack; Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes; Congressman John Lewis; Marianne Williamson; and the Founder of Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Margaret A. Burnham.
The San Francisco Film Society is the fiscal sponsor so that people can join the cause to help finish the film. All donations are tax deductible. For more details, visit www.resurrectinglovemovie.org
The IndieGoGo campaign for Resurrecting Love can be found online at http://igg.me/p/30353
The city of Cordoba and Al Tarab, NGO behind the African Film Festival-FCAT, announce changes in both the host city and the dates. The festival was organized since 2004 during the spring in Tarifa, Spain, and will now take place every autumn in Córdoba, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with 2,000 years of history, cradle of civilizations and cultures.
“We are very excited about the new period ahead. It is both a challenge and a big opportunity. Cordoba’s infrastructure, institutional and economic support will greatly help FCAT to fulfill its goals towards a better understanding of African realities through the works of African filmmakers” says Ms. Mane Cisneros, director of the festival. “Cordoba will also allow us to screen films from the Middle East for the first time”.
9th FCAT Córdoba 2012:
9º FCAT Córdoba 2012: 13 – 21 October
More than 120 films will be screened
Middle East films: curated by Dubai International Film Festival
Co-production forum and script development workshop
Photo exhibitions and citizen participation workshops
Cordoba, at the heart of ancient Al-Andalus is linked via speed train to Madrid, a journey of just 90 minutes that will make the festival more accessible to public and media.
“We are very pleased to host such an event. FCAT has proved in its eight years in Tarifa the power of films to bring people together. Cordoba will show its hospitality to the world, a tradition that is part of our character probably since the times of the Caliphate” Says Mr. Juan Antonio Nieto Ballesteros, mayor of Cordoba.
“Our dream in 2004 was to let both the Spanish public and film industry know better one of the most fragile film sectors in the world. We continue to believe that African filmmakers are best positioned to portray the problems and hopes of the African continent’s societies, to provide a dignified vision of the African men and women” continues Ms. Cisneros.
FCAT Cordoba main sponsors are AECID, Casa África, the city of Cordoba and Junta de Andalucía. For more information visit http://www.fcat.es :
! Enjoy:
