Sponsored by The Afro News - VIFF www.viff.org
By Ariadne Sawyer, MA. Afro News reporter. The Vancouver International Film Festival (September 30-October 15) is almost here! One of the largest five film festivals in North America, the festival screens films from 80 countries. Founded in 1982, the festival is known for a large selection of Asian films, one of the biggest showcases of Canadian films and strong percentage of documentary films. This year they welcome a new series:
Good Morning Africa!
Alan Franey, VIFF Festival Director & CEO sent this message for the Afro News:
“Pride and interest in Africa has increased dramatically this World Cup year, and once again, filmmakers have been ahead of the curve. VIFF has experienced an incredible increase in the number of submitted films set in sub-Saharan Africa and we’ve taken this excellent opportunity to launch a new series. The colourfully wide range of subjects and styles range across a rapidly changing and dynamic Africa from Chad, Congo, Kenya and Ethiopia to Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Zanzibar.
“My overall view of the upcoming 2010 VIFF is that it will be an amazing array of films from around the world, most of which this will be your only opportunity to see.”
Ticket info: www.viff.org September 12th, Visa advance tickets, September 19, cash and Visa sales begin. Office: 604-685-0260
Get your tickets early for this exceptional festival! www.viff.org
*Togetherness Supreme* (Sponsored by The Afro News-The Voice of Unity )
Nathan Collett, Kenya. Nairobi resident Nathan Collett’s debut feature focuses on three young adults from three different tribes, all living in Kibera, East Africa’s largest slum and getting caught up on the 2007 post-election violence that saw Kibera as a flashpoint.
*Bush League*
Cy Kuckenbaker, USA The players on the Tony Bombers football team in Zokolere, Malawi, serve as a microcosm for Cy Kuckenbaker’s on-the-ground look at social progress–and the lack thereof–in that Malawian village.
*Kinshasa Symphony*
Claus Wischmann, Martin Baer, Germany. The film shows how people living in one of the most chaotic cities in the world–Kinshasa, in the war-riven Democratic Republic of Congo–have managed to forge one of the most complex systems of human cooperation ever invented: a symphony orchestra. “An ode to joy.”–The Economist
*Life, Above All*
Oliver Schmitz, South Africa/Germany. Scripted by Vancouver’s Dennis Foon, Oliver Schmitz’s Cannes hit features “strong narrative drive and a lived-in sense of community… [It’s] an emotionally rich adaptation of Allan Stratton’s novel Chanda’s Secrets… [that offers] a forceful account of a courageous 12-year-old fighting small-minded prejudice in her South African village…”–Variety
*A Place Without People*
Andreas Apostolides, Greece/Tanzania In the name of “conservation” the vast Serengeti plain in Tanzania has been made off-limits to the very Massai who have historically populated and lived from it.
*A Screaming Man*
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun France/Belgium/Chad The country of Chad has been in a devastating state of civil war for more than 30 years. When Adam, who proudly reigns over the pool in an upscale hotel, is replaced in his job by his own son, a civil war of another type breaks out. Winner, Prix du Jury, Cannes 2010.
*Shooting with Mursi*
Ben Young, Olisarali Olibui UK More extraordinarily “exotic” than Leni Riefenstahl’s Africa, this unique work has co-director Olisarali Olibui patrolling his tribe’s ancient lands in SW Ethiopia with a Kalashnikov in one hand and a camera in the other.
*Zanzibar Musical Club*
Philippe Gasnier, Patrice Nezan France/Germany Given the island nation’s place at the crossroads of the spice route, Taarab, the music of Zanzibar, reflects two millennia of cultural exchange between East and West.
