The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) has announced the members of juries awarding prizes at its forthcoming edition, which will run from 30 November to 5 December 2011 in Lagos, Nigeria.
The juries are comprised of six individuals who are well-grounded in the global arts community.
Feature/Animation Jury:
Eriq Ebouaney – star of Raoul Peck’s Lumumba and Brian de Palma’s Femme Fatale, has worked with Gerard Depardieu, Jean Reno, Antonio Banderas, Orlando Bloom, Ridley Scott, Park Chan Wook, Jean-Jacques Annaud and other international stars.
Oladipo Agboluaje – British playwright Agboluaje’s credits include, Early Morning (produced by Futuretense), God is a DJ, The Estate, The Christ of Coldharbour Lane, For One Night Only, The Hounding of David Oluwale, Iya Ile, The Garbage King (an adaptation of Elizabeth Laird’s novel) and Say Goodbye.
Heidi Lobato – born in Amsterdam, Lobato has worked as production leader on various productions in The Netherlands and abroad, including a children’s film with Hakim Traidia for the Maghreb lands in Algeria (1988), the children’s programme Mijn Eerste Keer (Veronica), the young people’s programme Zapp (John de Mol) and various informative films for the cities of the Hague, Utrecht and Amsterdam. She continues to work as advisor to international film festivals such as Yole Africa, Kongo, Dockanema, Mozambique and proposed the film programme UN GIFT, United Nations Forum on Human Trafficking, which took place in February 2008 in Vienna.
Documentary Jury:
Femi Odugbemi – an award-winning writer, producer/director and photographer who has worked in the Nigerian motion picture industry and has created and produced several critically-acclaimed entertainment programmes for television and radio. His screen credits include: Like Father, Like Son (sitcom), Who Do You Love? (SFH talkshow), Who Wants to be a Millionaire (Nigeria’s most popular gameshow), the recent Lagos Lottery TV Gameshow, the international documentary, Life in Lagos for CFI in France, “Oui Voodoo, a short drama which won best short film at the Zuma Film Festival and Maroko, a full-length feature. In the last year, he has produced Mama Put, a New Directions short film and also a documentary, Ibadan – Cradle of Literati.
Mahen Bonetti – the founder and executive director of African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF), a non-profit arts organisation founded in 1990. AFF showcases works of African filmmakers and develops ways to share the vision and culture of African film with American and international audiences. In her role as film liaison, she contributes to an interdisciplinary mix of panels and programs, including those established by the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ougadougou (FESPACO), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York State Council of the Arts, UNDP, Africa’s US diplomatic offices and the Rolex Arts Initiative Awards.
Mbye Cham, Ph.D – originally from The Gambia and currently Chairman of the Department of African Studies at Howard University in Washington DC. His areas of research interest are literature and film and culture and development. In addition to numerous essays and chapters in books on African and Caribbean literature and film, he is the editor of EX-ILES: Essays on Caribbean Cinema, and co-editor of Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema and African Experiences of Cinema. About Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF)
The AFRIFF theme is Africa unites. It draws on the principle that being African is a bond that goes beyond geography, birth or lineage; as people of African origin are spread across the globe and Africa is also a proud home to many non-Africans. The vision is to reflect a common true African identity and re-establish Africa as an original home to all.
