Film festival celebrates Africa Day

The concept for a touring film festival that provides a platform to showcase classic and new African film was embraced by many industry stakeholders and the support for the festival has been impressive, according to the organisers. 2006 was the inaugural year of the festival, which highlighted six films and played host to a number of top directors, including Kenya’s Michael Wanguhu and Nigeria’s Jeta Amata. It has grown in size this year, with thirteen films being screened at the Museum Africa auditorium throughout the week.

This year, in addition to being staged in Kenya and South Africa, as per last year, there are plans to also include festival screenings in Nigeria. In SA, the festival will form part of the City of Joburg’s official Africa Day celebrations in Newtown.

SABC Africa has identified the festival as one of its key Africa Day events. According to SABC Africa GM Gugu Sibeko, “SABC Africa is again supporting the second annual African film festival, and this year we have become the main sponsors, in so this reaffirms our shared belief in helping to promote Pan African content, as there are great many African stories out there which need to be brought to the public’s attention.”

Also lending its support once again to the festival is the Film Resource Unit, a leader in archiving and distributing films across the continent. The Festival is also supported for the second year in a row by the French Embassy.

Range of titles

The selection of films in this year’s festival includes a range of titles that range from serious documentaries to light-hearted comedy. SABC Africa and the Film Resource Unit have been instrumental in selecting films that represent the spectrum of sub-Saharan African film, with a number of new releases being included.

Amongst this year’s selections is the much acclaimed “Africa Paradise”, a film from Benin directed by the up-and-coming director Sylvestre Amoussou. This film will launch the festival at a VIP function to be held on Thursday, 24 May, hosted by SABC Africa. Amoussou will be attending this function during his visit to SA. May 25th -25th. Amoussou has a long acting career and this film is his feature length directorial debut.

The Africa On Screen Festival will also welcome Ghana’s leading film director, Emmanuel Apea Jr, the director of Run Baby Run. Both these directors are available for press interviews upon request.

The finalised list of films to be screened at this year’s festival is as follows:

• Africa Paradise: Comedy/Drama, Benin
  
• Who Is Afraid of Ngugi: Documentary, Kenya
  
• Run Baby Run: Drama, Ghana
  
• Juju Factory: Drama, Congo
  
• Kinshasa Palace: Drama, Congo
  
• Heaven’s Herds: Documentary, South Africa
  
• Tanyaradzwa: Drama, Zimbabwe
  
• Bunny Chow: Comedy, South Africa
  
• Amazulu the Children of Heaven: Documentary, South Africa, SHOWN AS A DOUBLE FEATURE WITH:
  
• Luting: Documentary, Lesotho
  
• African Son Shines: Documentary, South Africa, SHOWN AS A DOUBLE FEATURE WITH
  
• Taste of Accra: Documentary, Ghana

Admission to all shows is free. For all show times and more information, go to www.sabcafrica.co.za .