In 2014, AfricAvenir plans to host another year of extraordinary African cinema
screenings in Namibia.
South African feature film Of Good Report (2013), directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka,
kicks off the new year, followed by Kenya’s Something Necessary (2013) by Judy
Kibinge, which deals with the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008.
In March, Tunisian film The Professor (2012) screens. This movie, by Mahmoud
Ben Mahmoud, highlights the human rights violations experienced in the 1970s,
and how this tore apart the personal life of the supporter of the political
establishment.
In April 2014, Imbabazi – The Pardon (2013) from Rwanda, Joel Karekezi’s debut
film, screens on the 20th commemoration of the Rwandan genocide.
Directed by Hubert Laba Ndao, Dakar Trottoirs (2013) from Senegal screens in
May and The Great Kilapy (2012), a co-production between Angola, Brazil and
Portugal, will also show.
Feature films Behind Closed Doors (2013) by Mohammed Ahed Bensouda from
Morocco, which deals with sexual harassment; Hidden Beauties (2012) by Nouri
Bouzid from Tunisia; Phillipe Niang’s epic Toussaint Louverture (2012), a co-
production between Haiti, France and Senegal; and South African feel-good film
Felix (2013) by Roberta Durrant, will screen in the second part of the year.
Documentaries such as Thomas Sankara (1993) by Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda,
DRC; Ceux de la Colline (2010) by Berni Goldblat, Burkina Faso and Sodiq (2013)
by Adeyemi Micheal, a co-production between Nigeria and the UK, will also be
shown.
Hans-Christian Mahnke, director of AfricAvenir, says: “I think the programme as
social and political commentary is clear. The tragedies, the poignant suffering,
the conflicts of the numerous men and women who people these films reflect the
larger social, intellectual and political changes in one significant part of the
modern world, Africa.
“The struggle of the younger generation of men and women to attain their
domestic freedom to shape their own lives mirrors or parallels the continent’s
struggle to achieve political and economic independence and to free itself from
the shackles of outworn and debilitating, almost medieval, conventions and
world outlook in a gigantic endeavour to belong to the modern world,’ he
concludes.
Email c.mahnke@africavenir.org or visit www.africavenir.org for more
information.
