Cascade Festival of African Films 2020: "Life is Fare" by Sephora Woldu (Eritrea)

Cascade Festival of African Films 2020

Life is Fare by Sephora Woldu

(Eritrea, USA) 2018, 61 min
Featuring Women Filmmakers Week

Synopsis

Life is Fare is a Tigrinya/ English feature film exploring three wildly different diaspora perspectives on the East African nation of Eritrea. A cross cultural analogy to challenge how patriotism and nationalism are practiced, it is inspired by current Eritrean and Ethiopian migration journeys worldwide.

Bio

Sephora Woldu is an Eritrean American visual artist and filmmaker based in San Francisco. Life is Fare is Sephora's first feature length film and her third project. Her first film, Impresa!, debuted at the 2013 San Francisco Black Film Festival and has since received awards at festivals including the Independent Film Awards Berlin, Montreal International Black Film Festival, and the Silicon Valley African Film Festival. Her second film, Exit, was made in Luxor, Egypt as a selected filmmaker for the 2014 Haile Gerima Alternative Film Production Workshop, a film program created in partnership with the Luxor African Film Festival. Sephora has received funding for her work from the San Francisco Arts Commission, SF Film Commission, Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, and Wildflower Institute. In 2013 she founded Abyssurdian Productions LLC, a creative studio from which all of her films and projects are released. Additionally, Sephora is a a full-time student pursuing a Master's in Architecture from California College of the Arts and currently works at the design firm IDEO because among other things, she is full of surprises.

Source: https://www.abyssurdian.com/

Life is Fare (Official Trailer) from Abyssurdian Productions on Vimeo.

30th Annual Cascade Festival of African Films 2020: Featuring Women Filmmakers Week

30th Annual Cascade Festival of African Films

In Celebration of Black History Month

At Portland Community College

31 January to 29 February 2020

The Cascade Festival of African Films is held in Portland, Oregon USA. The closing week of the festival features Women Filmmakers Week, which includes retrospectives, tributes and recently released short and feature films:

The Cascade Festival of African Films shows us Africa through the eyes of Africans, rather than a vision of Africa packaged for Western viewers. The films celebrate Africa’s achievements, expose its failures, and reveal possibilities for a hopeful future. Although the films cannot represent an entire continent, we hope to encourage American viewers to become interested in and study African cultures. Text and image source: Cascade Festival of African Films

The 2020 lineup of films for Women Filmmakers Week 27-29 February 

Papicha by Mounia Meddour (Algeria) 2019, 106 min (Women Filmmakers Week)

Life is Fare by Sephora Woldu (Eritrea, USA) 2018, 61 min

Freedom Fields by Naziha Arebi (Libya), 2018, 97 min

Woven by Salome Mulugeta and Nagwa Ibrahim (Ethiopia USA) 2016

Also women-directed films in the 30th Cascade Film Festival selection:

Adam by Maryam Touzani (Morocco) 2019, 98 min

The Shadow of Cairo by Tara Shehata (Egypt) 2018, 15 min (Family Fest Matinee) 

Sela by Rafieka Davis (South Africa) 2019, 25 min (Family Fest Matinee)

Theatre

How to Have Fun in a Civil War (Live Theater Performance)

A one-woman show by Somali multimedia artist Ifrah Mansour, USA 2018, 55 min

2020 Films - 01-29 February (Festival website link to films) 

• Adam by Maryam Touzani (Morocco) 2019, 98 min
• Alyam, Alyam/Oh The Days by Ahmed El Maanouni (Morocco) 1978, 98 min
• (African Film Heritage Series)
• Boxing Libreville by Amedée Pacôme Nkoulou (Gabon) 2018, 54 min (Documentary Series)
• Everything Must Fall by Rehad Desai (South Africa) 2018, 85 min (Documentary Series)
• Family Fest Matinee with The Shadow of Cairo by Tara Shehata and Sela by Rafieka Davis 
• Fatwa by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud (Tunisia) 2018, 102 min
• Freedom Fields by Naziha Arebi (Libya), 2018, 97 min
• (Women Filmmakers Week)
• Gao, Resistance of a People by Kassim Sanogo (Mali) 2018, 54 min (Documentary Series)
• How to Have Fun in a Civil War, a one-woman show by Ifrah Monsour (Somalia, USA) 2018, 55 min (Live Theatre Performance)
• Ishaba by Yuhi Amuli (Rwanda) 2015, 4 min (Short film)
• La femme au couteau/The Woman with the Knife by Timité Bassori (Côte d'Ivoire) 1969, 80 min (African Film Heritage Series)
• Life is Fare by Sephora Woldu (Eritrea, USA), 2018, 61 min (Women Filmmakers Week)
• Mabata Bata by Sol de Carvalho (Mozambique) 2018, 74 min
• Munda Moto/The Child of Another by Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa (Cameroon) 1975, 90 min (African Film Heritage Series)
• Nigerian Prince by Faraday Okoro (Nigeria, USA) 2018, 104 min
• Papicha by Mounia Meddour (Algeria) 2019, 106 min (Women Filmmakers Week)
• Photocopy by Tamer Ashry (Egypt) 2017, 90 min
• Soleil O by Med Hondo (Mauritania, France) 1970, 105 min (African Film Heritage Series)
• Spotlight on Senegal: Short Film Series
• Talk about Trees by Suhaib Gasmelbari (Sudan) 2019, 90 min
• The Burial of Kojo by Blitz Bazawule (Ghana) 2018, 80 min
• The Mercy of the Jungle by Joël Karekezi (Rwanda) 2018, 91 min
• Woven by Salome Mulugeta and Nagwa Ibrahim (Ethiopia USA) 2016 (Women Filmmakers Week)
• Zombies by Baloji (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 2019, 13 min (Short)