AFRICAN CINEMA NYC April 8-14

AFRICAN CINEMA NYC April 8-14

Attention movie buffs, social scientists, cultural adventurers and Obama scene makers .. you must go to the Walter Reed Theater at Lincoln Center and immerse yourself in the reality of African film culture today.. Squeezed between the end of the New Directors/New film MOMA fest and the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival is the 16th New York African Film Festival. Under the banner “Africa in Transition,” the festival will present a lineup of 35 films from 16 countries throughout Africa and the African Diaspora.

Exemplary of this metamorphosis is South Africa.

This year’s festival marks the 15th anniversary of South Africa’s independence and comes just days before voters there head to the polls to select a leader for the fourth time since the end of apartheid; April’s elections will be closely watched as they may be a political sea change for the country, with broad international implications. If you want to understand the world today, you should know Africa as it is in all its complexity, racial diversity and cultural representation,.

What you will discover is there is more to Africa than starving children, the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, celebrity adoptions, mosquitoes armies of viral infection and larger than life Dictators stealing and selling their countries natural resources to the highest bidder willing to deposit skimmed payment into secret Swiss bank accounts. While all of the above are quite serious realities much propagated by late night Christian "Save the Children" fund raising campaigns, Africa is so much more vibrant and dimensional and complicated.

The organizers of the African Film festival for the last 16 years have brought to the US cinema audience a dramatic narrative and documentary experience that begins to visually demonstrate why knowing the complicity of Africa is to begin to understand the future of world history.

This year the New York African Film Festival has expanded its program locations to include not only The Film Society of Lincoln Center theater at Lincoln Center but also to Columbia University on April 15th where AFF will collaborate with Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies for a day of free films and panel discussions. A feature-length film will be shown from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., followed by two shorts from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The day will conclude with “Beyond the Rainbow: 15 Years into South Africa's Democracy,” a panel discussion hosted by Professor Mamadou Diouf, Institute director. The event, which will run from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and be followed by a free reception, will examine the idea of nationhood in post-Apartheid South Africa.

May 22 through 25., BAM in Brooklyn will again host multiple days of screenings.

So 'fess up that you seen little modern African Cinema. Take charge and begin a fascination, thought provoking visual and knowledge expanding journey to discover of what makes Africa today the turning point in world momentum both politically and culturally

Here is the full schedule NEW YORK AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL

and here are programs programs I suggest you not miss:


The Importance of Being Elegant
George Amponsah, UK/USA/Ghana, 2004; 69m. In French and Lingala.
Read more...


Jerusalema
Ralph Ziman, South Africa, 2008; 118m
NEW YORK PREMIERE
Read more...


Triomf
Michael Raeburn, South Africa, 2008; 120m. In English and Afrikaans.
U.S. PREMIERE
Read more...


Yandé Codou, The Griote of Senghor / Yandé Codou, la griote de Senghor
Angèle Diabang Brener, Senegal, 2008; 52m. In Sérère, Wolof and English.
screening with
Nora
Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, USA/UK/Mozambique, 2008; 35m
and
Coming of Age
Judy Kibinge, Kenya, 2008; 12m
U.S. PREMIERE
Read more..

and
FILMMAKERS AGAINST RACISM

Congo My Foot
Okepne Ojang, South Africa/Cameroon, 2008; 24m. In French and English.
screening with
Martine and Thandeka
Xoliswa Sithole, South Africa, 2008; 24m. In French, Shona, and English.
also screening with
The Burning Man – Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave
Adze Ugah, South Africa/Nigeria, 2008; 24m. In Portuguese and English.
and
Baraka
Omelga Mthiyane and Riaan Hendricks, South Africa, 2008; 24m
Read more...


Hope we collide at the popcorn stand

JIM FOURATT REEL DEAL 4/7/09