New York African Film Festival 2016

New York African Film Festival 2016

Source: New York African Film Festival 

Under the banner Modern Days, Ancient Nights: 50 Years of African Filmmaking the 23rd edition of the New York African Film Festival honors the legacy of Sembène. The festival returns to New York to show film-lovers the most fascinating selection of narrative features, documentaries, and shorts from the African continent and the Diaspora. More than 50 works from over 25 countries display the exhilarating labor of a new generation of filmmakers working from the four corners of the world, enriching the growing patrimony of African cinema.

2016 NYAFF FILMS

’76: Izu Ojukwu, Nigeria, 2016, 138min.

About a Mother: Dina Velikovskaya, Russia, 2015, 8min.

Afripedia: Ghana, Kenya And Senegal: Senay Berhe, Teddy Goitom and Benjamin Taft, Ghana/Ivory Coast/Kenya/Senegal, 2014, 84min. (28min. x 3 episodes)

Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai (Rain The Color Of Blue With A Little Red In It): Christopher Kirkley, Niger, 2015, 75min.

Black Jews: The Roots Of The Olive Tree: Laurence Gavron, Senegal/France, 2016, 56min.

Child of the Revolution: Xoliswa Sithole, Zimbabwe, 2014, 73min.

Cholo: Muzna Almusafer, United Arab Emirates/France, 2014, 21min.

Cuckold: Charlie Vundla, South Africa, 2015, 95min.

The Cursed One: Nana Obiri Yeboah and Maximillian Claussen, UK/Ghana, 2015, 95min.

The Dance of King David: Axel Baumann, USA, 2011, 32min.

Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs: Jihan El-Tahri, Egypt/France/USA/Qatar, 2014, 168min. (56min. x 3 films)

Faaji Agba: Remi Vaughan-Richards, Nigeria, 2015, 91min.

In Search of Finah Misa Kule: Kewulay Kamara, Sierra Leone, 2015, 42min.

Head Gone: Dare Fasasi, Nigeria/Sweden, 2014, 111min.

Hex: Clarence Peters, Nigeria, 2015, 26min.

In The Eye of the Spiral: Raynald Leconte and Eve Blouin, USA/Haiti/UK, 2014, 72min.

Intore (The Chosen): Eric Kabera, Rwanda, 2014, 76min.

Kirikou and the Wild Beasts: Michel Ocelot and Benedicte Galup , France, 2005, 75 min.

La Belle at the Movies: Cecilia Zoppelletto, UK/Belgium/Congo, 2015, 67min.

Lamb: Yared Zeleke, Ethiopia/France/Germany/Norway/Qatar, 2015, 94min.

The Longest Kiss: Alexandra Sicotte-Levesque, 2013, Sudan/Canada, 75min.

Martha & Niki: Tora Mårtens, Sweden, 2015, 93min.

Mixtress X: Daty Kaba, USA, 2005, 74min.

Negritude: A Dialogue Between Wole Soyinka and Senghor: Manthia Diawara, USA/France/Germany/Portugal, 2015, 59min.

The Other Side of the Atlantic (Do outro lado do Atlântico): Márcio Câmara, Brazil, 2016, 90min.

Ọya: Something Happened On The Way To West Africa!: Seyi Adebanjo, Nigeria, 2015, 30min.

Pastor Paul: Jules David Bartkowski, USA/Ghana/Nigeria, 2015, 70min.

Price of Love: Hermon Hailay, Ethiopia, 2015, 99min.

The Prophecy: Marcia Juzga, Senegal, 2015, 20min.

Queen Nanny: Legendary Maroon Chieftainess: Roy T. Anderson, Jamaica, 2013, 59min.

Red Leaves: Bazi Gete, Israel, 2014, 80min.

Sembene!: Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo, Senegal/USA, 2015, 82min.

Some Bright Morning: The Art of Melvin Edwards: Lydie Diakhaté, USA/France, 2016, 51min.

Tanna: Bentley Dean and Martin Butler, Australia/Vanuatu, 2015, 104 min.

Tchindas: Marc Serena and Pablo García Pérez de Lara, Spain/Cape Verde, 2015, 95min.

TGV: Moussa Touré, France/Germany/Senegal, 1997, 88min.

Too Black to be French?: Isabelle Boni-Claverie, France, 2015, 52min.

Twaaga (Invincible): Cedric Ido, France/ Burkina Faso, 2013, 30min.

Under the Starry Sky: Dyana Gaye, France/Senegal, 2013, 86min.

While You Weren’t Looking: Catherine Stewart, South Africa, 2015, 104min.

Yemanjá: Wisdom From The African Heart Of Brazil: Donna C. Roberts and Donna Read, USA/Brazil, 2015, 52min.

Shorts Program #1 – Quartiers Lointains 

The Return: Yohann Kouam, France, 2013, 22min.

The Sense of Touch: Jean-Charles Mbotti Mololo, France, 2014, 15min.

Destino: Zangro, France, 2013, 22min.

Towards Tenderness: Alice Diop, France, 2016, 40min.

Shorts Program #2 – Africa in New York 

Afripedia X New York: Teddy Goitom, Benjamin Taft, Senay Berhe, Sweden/USA, 2016, 12min.

Anton: Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, USA/Uganda/Germany, 2016, 5min.

Contained: Mamadou Dia, Senegal/USA, 2016, 5min.

Olive: Alfonso Johnson, USA, 2016, 6.5min.

Reluctantly Queer: Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ghana/USA, 2016, 8min.

New York, I Love You: Iquo B. Essien, USA, 2016, 21min.

Book: Looking Back, Looking Forward, 20 Years of the New York African Film Festival

Looking Back, Looking Forward, 20 Years of the New York African Film Festival, by eds. Mahen Bonetti and Beatriz Leal Riesco, (New York: African Film Festival Inc.) The New York African Film Festival was founded by Mahen Bonetti of Sierra Leone, who is the Executive Director.

FROM THE BACK COVER:

To commemorate twenty years of the New York African Film Festival, over thirty of the continent’s most vibrant cinematic voices reflect upon the reasons that led them to dedicate their lives to filmmaking and the new challenges and opportunities for African cinema in the future. The filmmakers’ words reveal their own unique experiences and help us discover the richness and singularity of Africa’s cinematic history, illuminating new trends in contemporary African cinema and emphasizing the role of the African filmmaker as a cultural and political mediator in our highly interconnected world.

The directors’ insights are accompanied by detailed biographies and filmographies, as well as in-depth essays by filmmakers Férid Boughedir, Osvalde Lewat, and Femi Odugbemi, and renowned film programmer Richard Peña. The publication also has been honored with a statement from distinguished filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako. Together, they create an intergenerational audiovisual map of the continent.

Featuring contributions from Ahmad Abdalla, Moussa Sène Absa, Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Isabelle Boni-Claverie, Cheick Fantamady Camara, Yara Costa, Daouda Coulibaly, Yemane I. Demissie, Angèle Diabang, Andrew Dosunmu, Jihan El-Tahri, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Hawa Essuman, David ‘Tosh’ Gitonga, Alain Gomis, Wanjiru Kairu, Mama Keïta, Tunde Kelani, Judy Kibinge, Ekwa Msangi-Omari, Djo Tunda wa Munga, Jean Odoutan, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Xoliswa Sithole, Lonesome Solo, Charlie Vundla, and Zelalem Woldemariam.

As has been our goal throughout the two decades of the New York African Film Festival,  we are giving a privileged space to the newest voices from the continent and the diaspora to celebrate more than fifty years of African cinema while continuing to look toward the future.

With the support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, we are proud to present this unique complement to the two volumes of our landmark anthology series Through African Eyes.

Mahen Bonetti: The New York African Film Festival

The New York-based African Film Festival (NYAFF) has become a staple of the city's cinematic landscape thanks to its founder and executive director, Sierra Leonean Mahen Bonetti. Founded with the support of her husband and important players on the New York City culture scene, NYAFF has become an institution in itself and is a groundbreaking network for the promotion, exhibition, and distribution of African cinema in the United States. As the NYAFF motto indicates "it is more than just a festival".

NYAFF as an idea emerged in the 1980s from Mahen's desire to show positive, diverse and realistic visual representation of Africa in the United States, in contrast to the dominant media images of misery and strife. While the festival concept had not yet formulated, she had already begun to look for a way to make a contribution towards correcting these misconceptions about Africa. As the film festival took shape in the 1990s its main objective was to use the medium of cinema to promote awareness about Africa and educate both Americans and Africans living in the United States. At the same time, it has always been committed to the development of an international audience for African films. The scope and scale of NYAFF expands to reflect the ever-changing realities of Africa and the African Diaspora, as well as new developments in African cinema practices.

And while in cinema one often finds a dominance of men, within NYAFF there is a high visibility of women in all spheres. Women have always played an integral role--from the very top of the small organization to the board of directors and advisory board, in the selection of films, and the articles and interviews in the impressive Through African Eyes publication series.

Mahen had this to say to my question during our interview: "As a woman, do you feel that you have a sensibility towards African women's works? Could you talk about the visual image of African women and the representation of African women in the film industry and also share your impressions on films by African women, the sensibility, themes, tendencies?" (From Sisters of the Screen: Women of African on Film, Video and Television, Beti Ellerson, 2000).

I think Africa is a woman and everything that is working in Africa is because women are behind it.  They also have a sensitivity and the rhythm.  Women are more three-dimensional, they are deeper, and in Africa, that complexity comes from a woman. I find that the subjects that the African women deal with are different from those of African-American women's films, much less Hollywood.  Here in the States, one doesn't expect to see things like polygamy, female genital mutilation, or women in Tanzania crushing stone.  You feel their passion, you feel their confusion, you share it with them. Safi Faye's film Mossane is a beautiful film; there you have three generations of women. I also felt lucky; she let me show it this year.  I love the relationship between the grandmother and the granddaughter.

No aspect of African cinema is more miraculous than the most unbidden emergence of female filmmakers on the continent.  What makes film the most immediate, the most direct of all art forms is its ability to transport, to place one instantaneously in someone else's situation.  Their films sometimes focus on the challenges of adjustment and this is why audiences can identify.  Whether they are depicting upheavals or celebrating life, they show "little people" trying to "do the right thing."
I believe the female African filmmaker has a defined perception of her world and because of this her films translate.  It can move from one language into others.  They have tenacity, resourcefulness, and buoyancy.  Their situation requires all these qualities.

I also believe that, in using the cinematic medium, we find that in their films, women are best able to recapture, help define the true essence of African culture and African people.  They address issues in a sense that are taken away from imposed colonial values or colonial distortions and point of view.

Link: African Film Festival, Inc.

African Women on the US Film Festival Circuit

As the film festival season comes into full swing, African women are featured at several venues in the United States with an impressive number of films being screened at the African Film Festival of New York and at the recently completed Cascade Festival of African Films  in Portland, Oregon. The 19th Annual Cascade Festival began in February in honor of Black History Month and ended in March with the Women Filmmakers Week in commemoration of Women’s History Month. This year there were four films by women: Cuba: An African Odyssey (2007) by Egyptian Jihan El Tahir; Cameroonian Osvalde Lewat-Hallade’s film, A Love During The War (2005); the film, Enough! / Barakat! (2006) by Algerian Djamila Sahraoui, and Katy Léna N'Diaye of Senegal with Awaiting for Men (2007).

The African Film Festival of New York, which has just opened on 8 April, celebrates its 16th year with the theme: Africa in Transition. Eight African women are featured in the festival: Egyptian Jihan El-Tahri’s Behind The Rainbow (2009) which is the centerpiece of the festival; Yandé Codou, la griotte de Senghor (2008) by Senegalese Angèle Diabang-Brener; three women from Kenya: Wanuri Kahiu’s From a Whisper (2008), two films by Judy Kibinge, Killer Necklace (2009) and Coming of Age (2008), and Lupita Nyong’o’s In My Genes (2009). Cameroonian Josephine Ndagnou’s film Paris or Nothing/Paris à tout prix (2008) is among these exciting listings as well as British-Nigerian Ngozi Onwurah’s Shoot the Messenger (2006). Katy Léna N'Diaye’s  Awaiting for Men,which was also featured in the Cascade Festival, is also among the film selections. Below are short synopses of the films along with relevant links.

Angèle Diabang-Brener (Senegal) Yandé Codou, la griotte de Senghor. Yandé Codou Sène, 80-something, is one of the last great singers of polyphonic Serer poetry. This film is an intimate look at a diva who has lived through Senegalese history at the side of one of its greatest near-mythical figures, President-poet Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Jihan El-Tahri (Egypt) Behind the Rainbow. The film explores the transition of the ANC-The African National Congress--from a liberation organization into South Africa's ruling party, through the evolution of the relationship between two of its most prominent cadres, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Exiled under Apartheid they were brothers in arms, under Mandela they loyally labored to build a non-racial state, now they are bitter rivals. Their duel threatens to tear apart the ANC and the country, as the poor desperately seek hope in change and the elite fight for the spoils of victory.

Jihan El Tahri (Egypt) Cuba: An African Odyssey. The previously untold story of Cuba's support for a variety of revolutionary and independence movements on the African continent from the mid-1960s through the early 1990s. These include Che Guevara's military campaign in the Congo to avenge the execution of the country's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba; Cuba's support of Amilcar Cabral's uprising in Guinea-Bissau; and the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, which led to the independence of Namibia and the fall of apartheid in South Africa. 

Wanuri Kahiu (Kenya) From a Whisper. The film commemorates the 10th anniversary of the August 1998 terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in which over 250 people died and more than 5,000 were injured. The film tells the story of an artist and an intelligence officer, and how they find unique ways to move on from the tragedy that shattered their lives.

Judy Kibinge (Kenya) Killer Necklace. Boo is a handsome young banker with a bright future; Wai is a sultry young girl from a privileged background. Boo would do anything for Wai, but Wai has her eye on a different prize: the most beautiful golden necklace in the world. This  twisted tale of desire and deceit asks, is anybody what they appear to be?

Judy Kibinge (Kenya) Coming of Age. This coming of age story depicts the three ages and stages of democracy as seen through the eyes of a girl growing up. The Kenyatta era, a time of great optimism and post-independence euphoria is reflected in the innocence and naivety of the young girl. As Kenya enters its next era, of dictatorship under Daniel arap Moi, the gloom of oppression and confusion is reflected by teenage turmoil and finally, all grown up, we find ourselves in Kenya’s third stage of democracy under Mwai Kibaki and wondering if democracy, with all its free speech and openness can ever really come of age.

Osvalde Lewat-Hallade (Cameroon) A Love During The War. The documentary focuses on journalist Aziza and her husband who were separated when war broke out in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996. Six years later, they reunite in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo. However, Aziza is haunted by memories of the horrors suffered by the women in eastern DRC during the war. She returns to visit these women who have started denouncing the abuses they suffered during the war.

Josephine Ndagnou (Cameroon) Paris or Nothing/Paris à tout prix. Suzy will do anything to go to Paris, but finds that it is not the paradise that she had dreamed.

Katy Léna N'Diaye (Senegal) Awaiting for Men. Three women in Oualata, Mauritania, on the edge of the Sahara desert, practice traditional painting by decorating the walls of the city. They express themselves openly about the relationship between men and women.

Lupita Nyong’o (Kenya) In My Genes. The documentary explores what is it like to be “white” in a “black” society. Agnes, a woman with albinism, overcomes the difficulties of being born with no pigment in a society that discriminates against people with the condition. The film explores the experiences of a member of one of the most hyper-visible and at the same time invisible groups of people in a predominantly black society.

Ngozi Onwurah (Nigeria/UK) Shoot the Messenger. Jose, a teacher, is determined to save the black youngsters at his school from a life of gangs, crime and underachievement. When a seemingly minor incident escalates out of control, Joe loses his job, and as a result, experiences a mental breakdown which leads him to turn against his community.

Djamila Sahraoui (Algeria) Enough!/Barakat! Amel, an emergency physician, joins forces with Khadija, a nurse who once fought for Algerian independence against the French, to search for her husband, a journalist whose writings led to his disappearance. Despite the extreme danger and difficulties of their quest, the two women forge a bond of mutual affection and respect that leads to a deeper understanding of how their lives were shaped by their country's history.