South Africa on stage at Cordoba film festival

The documentary film, Jeppe on a Friday, whose filmmakers Arya Lalloo and Shannon Walsh will be attending the festival, is hoping to repeat last year's win for South Africa of the Griot for the Best Documentary Film.

The filmmakers have been invited for the Q&A following the screening of Sunday 13 October at 9pm at Góngora Theatre (Polifemo Screen). They will be attending the 'Film Appetizers' on Monday 14 October with a second screening on Thursday 17 October at the same venue.

Plot

The film is described as a female gaze to the post-apartheid South Africa. Jeppe is decayed inner city neighbourhood in transformation. Friday is the time setting of the film that will allow spectators to witness the reorganisation of the South African society post-apartheid.

The filmmakers manage to portray the lives of eight different people, from the poorest to the richest one, achieving a record of life in the dynamic Johannesburg, through a female gaze that demystifies the often male-dominated metropolis.

The film shows them in their daily lives and talking about the changes that the South African capital is going through. Lalloo is already engaged in post-apartheid social movements through documentary films, such as Citizen X (2010). Her co-direction with Shannon Walsh, researcher and filmmaker whose first feature documentary, H2Oil (2009) was shortlisted by the Montreal Mirror as one of the top ten documentaries in 2009 for her approach to environmental devastation in Canada, has resulted in a well documented piece that approaches the complexities of the post-apartheid contemporary Africa through a diversity of profiles.

Other films

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation (A. Gibson, 1996, 118') has been selected for the non-competitive category 'Pandora's Box', nominated to the Oscars in 1996. The screenings have been programmed at Vimcorsa on Thursday 17 October at 9pm and on Saturday 19 October at 12 am. The documentary traces Mandela's story from his birth to his success and respected position as a political leader and international reference for freedom.

Jeppe

Finally, there is a South African production set in Kenya, whose success was rewarded at London Film Africa 2012 with the Audience Award. Nairobi Half Live (Tosh gitonga, 2012) will be on the screens of Cordoba on Tuesday 15 October at 7pm at Vimcorsa and on Friday 18 October at 5pm at Góngora Theatre (Polifemo Screen).

The story portrays the hostility that the Kenyan capital can reach through the character of Mwas (played incredibly by Joseph Wairimu, mainly known as Babu), who is an aspiring actor that will travel to Nairobi to accomplish his dream. However, he will be involved in gangs and consequently in a violence that will shape his maturity as a person and an actor.

Babu was one of the three members of the Jury at the Slum Film Festival last September 2013, whose founder, Federico Olivieri, coordinator of the Film Criticism Workshop at the 10th FCAT Cordoba, will be in the second screening of this film presenting the project of the Slum Film Festival.

The African Film Festival of Cordoba-FCAT returns from 11-19 October to celebrate its 10th anniversary by striving for a better understanding of the neighbouring continent through its film culture. In this tenth edition - the second one in Cordoba after eight years in Tarifa (Cadiz) - Cordoba cements its place as the only Spanish platform showcasing African and Middle Eastern cinemas.

FCAT Cordoba, organised by the NGOD Al Tarab with the sponsorship of the City Council of Cordoba, Magtel Corp. and Instituto Halal, will screen during one week, 70 films from or on Africa made by 32 different countries. This will be completed by a series of activities implying all audiences and professionals, spread across the city.