Full swing for the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival, taking place from September 26 – October 6 Must See African Interest Films. Media Partner ,The Afro News Is proud to Sponsor.
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
After saying no on her wedding day, Aya leaves the Ivory Coast for a new life in the buzzing “Chocolate City” in Guangzhou, China. In this district where the African diaspora meets the Chinese culture, she gets hired in a tea boutique owned by Cai, a Chinese man. In the secrecy of the back shop, Cai decides to initiate Aya to the tea ceremony. Through the teaching of this ancient art, their relationship slowly turns into tender love.But for their burgeoning passion to lean on trust, they must let go of their burdens and face their pastAya, a woman from the Ivory Coast in her early thirties, says “No” on her wedding day. She emigrates to China and falls in love with Cai, the owner of a tea boutique. Can their relationship survive other people’s prejudices and the turmoil of Aya’s past?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnW8ND9uuHk
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Director: Rungano Nyoni
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.
https://a24films.com/films/on-becoming-a-guinea-fowl
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Village Keeper
Director: Karen Chapman
After the tragic loss of her husband, single mother Beverly-Jean (Olunike Adeliyi, Akilla’s Escape) struggles to bridge the emotional gap between herself and her teenage children. Once a professional dancer, and now a caretaker on the verge of a second eviction, she’s losing patience with her son Tristin (Micah Mensah-Jatoe), and is worried about the panic attacks her daughter Tamika (Zahra Bentham) hides from her. Desperate to shelter her children from a surge of gun violence in Toronto, Jean takes it upon herself to cleanse the blood from crime scenes in their neighbourhood. This transformative experience impels her to examine the hidden wounds in her family’s own painful past.
Based on her award-winning short film Measure, writer-director Karen Chapman’s feature debut blends social realism with compelling psychological portraiture, making confident use of flashbacks to capture the associative nature of emotionally charged memories. Village Keeper traces a mother’s valiant efforts to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, and her heartwarming quest to rediscover what brings her joy in life.
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40 Acres
Director: R.T. Thorne
Two hundred years after the first Civil War, the descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada struggle to keep famine at bay. Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) and her husband Galen (Michael Greyeyes) have raised their kids to live off the land and protect their home. Their safety and comfort are interrupted when a bloodthirsty band of cannibals discovers their sanctuary.
R.T. Thorne’s extensive resume in TV and music videos comes through in his exciting debut feature about a family in peril. The Black and Indigenous cast shines with Deadwyler and Greyeyes turning in powerful performances as parents desperate to protect their family, and Kataem O’Connor as Emanuel, the eldest son, who flirts with disaster when he discovers a young woman on the other side of the fence. Building to a sensational climax, 40 Acres is a welcome piece of representational genre filmmaking and a gripping thriller in its own right.
Send email to editor@theafronews.ca to claim your ticket. *while quantities last*
