CinemAfrica Film Festival opens on Wednesday 4th Feb 09 at the Cinema Sture. Dani Kouyaté, one of Burkina Faso's leading filmmakers, leads the inauguration of the festival. Opening Film is Sex, okras and Salted Butter.
This year's competition films
This year there are five feature films competing at CinemAfricas Film Festival. The winning film will receive swedish distribution by Folkets Bio cinemas.
The five nominated films are:
Andalucia
Director: Alain Gomis Senegal/France, 2007, 90 min. Language: French, English text.
Yacine is over thirty, with origins in Algeria, but born and raised in France. Perhaps he should be "integrated" by now, but Yacine lives his life as if the foundation was missing. Andalucia is a hit film, a nerve and poetic reflection of the confusion of living in the diaspora and searching for an identity in a society who want to transform you into the average standard - integrations holy name.
Teza
Director: Haile Gerima Etiopien/Germany/France, 2008, 140 min. Language: Amarinja, English and German, Englsh text
Ethiopians great film director is back with a poetic and visually beautiful, epic true story of their country's tragic recent history. We follow doctor Anberber during the first chaotic years of Mengistus Marxist regime in the early 90s, as he returns home to his village after many years in exile in Germany. The American film magazine Screen writes that "Teza is a memorable, albeit raw film which marks a significant step forward for African film."
Triomf
South Africa/France, 2008, 118 min Director: Michael Raeburn Language: Afrikaans och English, Englsh text
Johannesburg, a few days before the historic elections in 1994. In the background, black South Africans are celebrating that apartheid will soon be a painful memory. But the focus of the movie is not there, but on a deeply dysfunctional white family in the city's poor neighborhoods. Triomf is a completely hellbent, senseless story about a family on the slide. But despite the black undertone - this is an immensely entertaining, warm and funny film where the characters, despite their hideous situations can somehow be understood and pitied.
Khamsa
Tunisien/France, 2008, 110 min Director: Karim Dridi Language: French, English text
A raw but warm depiction of a tough boy living in a Roma camp outside Marseille. Marco returns to the camp after having fled from his foster family, but finds his sottish dad in yet another new girlfriend's arms and doors to most relatives caravans closed. His life is with the other young boys in the area, where the world of petty crime feels like the only possible way forward. Khamsa is a strong story, very beautifully filmed and sincerely shaped by the young amateur actors.
Sex, Okra and Salted Butter
Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun Tchad/French, 2008, 81 min. Language: French, English text
A warm and artful story of an African family's fate and adventure in the French city of Bordeaux. When the mother, Hortense, has enough of the family's forlorn patriarch and leaves him for a white, non-circumcised (!) Oyster farmer, the family fall (or at least the father's) apart. A neighbor in a flirty pink bathrobe manages to get the humour up somewhat, but honor must be restored. Hortense resolute sister is called into the home to sort out the situation.
For more information please ring Sandra Olivegren on 0708- 991299 or email
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Visit: www.cinemafrica.se.
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