Event Listing - Movies

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Thu Jan 24 - Thu Feb 28

African Film Festival


Website

Location
Date and Time
Pacific Film Archive (PFA)
2575 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94720 map
cross street: Bowditch
district: Berkeley

Thu Jan 24 (6:30 p.m. - Bamako)
Sat Jan 26 (6:30 p.m. - Waiting for Happiness; 8:30 p.m. - Bamako)
Thu Feb 7 (5:30 p.m. - Two by Ousmane Sembčne, plus Menged (Free Screening!))
Sat Feb 9 (8:30 p.m. - Clouds over Conakry)
Wed Feb 13 (6:30 p.m. - Young Rebels: New Visions from Africa; 8:10 p.m. - Life on Earth)

Description
In its fourteenth year, the New York–based African Film Festival is more important than ever. While Africa may get glancing treatment in Western news, images made and fashioned by Africans are still shut out of our television screens, movie theaters (since 2000, only two African films on average per year have been released in the United States), and even major film festivals. PFA is proud to present a selection of films from this year’s festival, representing not only established industries in Cameroon and Senegal, but also emerging visions from Ethiopia, Guinea, and the Congo. These works may lack budgets or name-brand stars, but they’re outraged and insightful enough to open the blind eye that has been turned to African ideas and ideals.

While most of the festival focuses on new, up-and-coming directors, we’ve also organized a mini-retrospective of arguably the most successful African filmmaker in recent years, the Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako (Bamako; Waiting for Happiness). And, in tribute to Ousmane Sembčne, the pioneer of African cinema who passed away last year, we offer a free screening of two of his short films, including one of his first, Borom Sarret. Over forty years old, it’s a reminder of how humble beginnings can harbor greatness.

An additional African film, Lumo, is presented in the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival on February 24.

Jason Sanders
Associate Film Notes Writer

Thursday, January 24, 2008
6:30 p.m. Bamako
Set in the Malian capital of its title, Abderrahmane Sissako’s passionate polemic centers on a show trial in which the plaintiff, “African society,” argues against exploitation by the defendant, the World Bank. Repeated on Saturday, January 26.

Saturday, January 26, 2008
6:30 p.m. Waiting for Happiness
Abderrahmane Sissako’s tale of life in a Mauritanian seaside village unfolds in a series of arresting images. “A poignant, poetic reflection on themes of exile, travel, home, and displacement.”—Variety

Saturday, January 26, 2008
8:30 p.m. Bamako
See Thursday, January 24.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
5:30 p.m. Two by Ousmane Sembčne, plus Menged (Free Screening!)
Free First Thursday Screening! Introduced by Paap Alsaan Sow. Two influential early films by African cinema’s spiritual father, Ousmane Sembčne: Borom Sarret and Tauw. With Menged, an award-winning new film from Ethiopia, featuring music by Tlahoun Gessesse.

Saturday, February 9, 2008
8:30 p.m. Clouds over Conakry
Hip-hop and laptops collide with religious edicts and traditional demands in this lively romantic drama from Guinea. “An impressive debut.”—Variety

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
6:30 p.m. Young Rebels: New Visions from Africa
An eclectic, electric program offers magic realism from Lesotho, documentary from Zimbabwe, and social commentary from Nigeria.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
8:10 p.m. Life on Earth
Sissako’s rapturous portrait of his father’s village in Mali as it waits for the 21st century. With Sissako’s Rostov-Luanda.

Sunday, February 17, 2008
5:30 p.m. The Forgotten Man
Osvalde Lewat-Hallade’s thoughtful documentary on the Cameroonian prison system “shows you what a camera can do.”—Village Voice. With Lewat-Hallade’s A Love During the War.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
7:30 p.m. Juju Factory
A Congolese intellectual in Brussels struggles to keep his new book from being exoticized in this dazzling cinematic essay on exile, colonialism, and history, a combination of the challenging theatrics of Brecht and the intellectual savvy of Frantz Fanon.

The African Film Festival National Traveling Series has been organized by the African Film Festival, Inc. This series has been made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Tides Foundation. Special thanks to Mahen Bonetti, director, and Aba Taylor, program administrator, African Film Festival, for their assistance.

At PFA, the festival is co-presented by UC Berkeley’s Department of African American Studies and Center for African Studies, and curated by Kathy Geritz. Special thanks to Cornelius Moore, Martha Saavedra, and Ula Taylor.

Prints from African Film Festival, unless otherwise indicated.