The Real Life Documentary Film Festival, to be held from 20 to 26 May in Accra, Ghaha, inaugurates an annual film event dedicated to documentary films based on the histories, peoples, heroes, cities and locations of African and diasporic African communities.
This event will bring together filmmakers, scholars, students and film enthusiasts and aims to be the continent’s major initiative and forum for the production, cataloging and exhibition of documentary film records of African and African-diasporic subjects in global history.
The films to be exhibited are in such categories as: Africa-in all its regions, The African Diaspora, World Cinema, and Student Films. In addition to exhibiting documentaries by filmmakers from Africa and beyond, the festival will include a programme of student films, comprising of entries from Ghana’s National Film and Television Institute as well as those from other students worldwide, such as New York University, that portray Pan-African images.
The programme will also include an exhibition of photographic interpretations of Pan-African subjects by leading photographers. This festival will invite filmmakers as well as exhibitors engaged in the industries of producing and distributing films. Workshops by filmmakers and exhibitions by companies in the film business will complement the screenings. The events are open to the general public and seek to inspire young filmmakers and documentarians to address the arts, politics, and social issues of relevance to the Pan-African world. It hopes to promote awareness of and engagement with these concerns among African audiences at all levels – from schoolchildren through adults in all walks of life.
The festival inaugurates the West African Documentary Forum – a production, post production, archiving and scholarly organisation dedicated to producing and documenting knowledge on contemporary African and African diasporic issues through films. New York University initiates this project through its Africa House programme, Institute of African American Affairs, Tisch School of the Arts, and NYU in Ghana Institute in partnership with the University of Ghana and Ghana’s National Film and Television Institute.
For more information email laurene@ka-yelema.com or visit wwwrealifefestival@ka-yelema.com.
