CinemAfrica Sweden 2014 | 19 – 23 March

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19th – 23rd March 2014

CinemAfrica arranges the largest African film festival in Sweden. The festival is a unique opportunity for children, youth and adults to watch and discuss films from emerging African film industries. They show feature films, documentaries, short films and animations made by filmmakers of African descent and works to highlight the Africans own pictures and stories.

Kenyan artists/filmmakers Wangechi Mutu and Jim Chuchu both have work that is screening. Mutu’s first animated film The End of eating Everything will be screening and Chuchu’s work is also screening as part of the African Metropolis project which I previously featured here.

African metropolis

cinemafrica 2014

There are also talks and special Q&A sessions throughout the festival. What part does contemporary art from Africa play across the global art world? Three artists who all use visual art as one of their mediums will be hosting a discussion, international Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu, producer/researcher/presenter Zina Saro-Wiwa and innovative filmmaker Frances Bodomo. In collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. This event is free.

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Stuart Hall was one of the greatest and most influential thinkers, and has been a constant presence in the global public debate for over 50 years, a pioneer in everything from the British New Left to feminist cultural analysis and postcolonial studies. In this sensitive told documentary director John Akomfrah creates a beatiful portrait of Stuart Hall from archive images and audio fragments, and creates an equal political and personal dialogue about memory, identity and our age’s dramatic history.

cinemafrica 2014

The history of black women in the American civil rights movement in the 60’s – and 70’s in a large-scale and ambitious documentary, a celebration of generations and a lesson to today’s feminists from the young, Nigeria-born filmmaker Nevline Nnaji. With a mixture of fresh interviews and archival material, we follow the emergence of a strong, international solidarity, black feminism, which is forced to fight against both sexist structures in the civil rights movement and racist structures in the women’s movement.

cinemafrica2014

Some would argue that no area within the film world has changed so fast and so spectacularly in recent years as the African music videos, today a giant industry that established links with many of the most exciting and experimental willing new filmmakers. Along with a panel of directors who all have been involved in various ways in the music video world, examples will be shown and there will be discussions about the production, aesthetics, the music industry and how today directors are approaching the history and future.  Teddy Goitom from Stocktown where music videos are prominently featured, will be on the panel.

Also screening are various films I have featured here including Afronauts  and Boneshaker by Frances Bodomo,

The Robots of Brixton and Jonah by Kibwe Tavares,

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Update | Afronauts, Casting Announcements and Teaser Trailer

diandra forrest2

Photo courtesy of Powder Room Films

A film by Frances Bodomo
12 min | B&W | High Definition | NTSC |16:9
USA, 2013
Status:  In post-production

Afronauts is a pre-thesis film by talented filmmaker Frances Bodomo which Ciné Kenya previously featured here.

Since then, several casting choices were announced. Stunning model/actress Diandra Forrest (you can see her in Kanye West’s ‘Power‘ music video) will be playing Matha and prolific actress/director Yolonda Ross (HBO’s Treme, Yelling to the Sky and her own film Breaking Night) is playing Auntie Sunday. We are also pleased to announce Bodomo’s Kickstarter campaign has also achieved its fund-raising goal days before its deadline. The teaser trailer above released recently, features the haunting Elvis Presley rendition of ‘Blue Moon’.

diandra forrest

Diandra Forrest

yolanda ross

Yolonda Ross

The film tells an alternative history of the 1960s Space Race; it’s July 16th 1969 the night of the moon landing. The project is based on a true story. The dreams of space travel led science school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso to found a National Space Academy of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse outside of Lusaka. As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, a rag-tag group of exiles in the Zambian desert are trying to beat America to the same destination. There’s only one problem: their spacegirl, Matha, is five months pregnant. Afronauts follows characters that have not been able to find a home on earth and are therefore attracted to the promise of the space race.

Bodomo’s previous short film Boneshaker starring Quvenzhané Wallis premiered at 2013 Sundance Film Festival and is currently continuing its festival run.

Diandra_2-stills1

Photo courtesy of Powder Room Films

Afronauts

AFRONAUTS

Photograph by Cristina de Middel

Photograph by Cristina de Middel

Photograph by Cristina de Middel

A film by Frances Bodomo
12 min | B&W | High Definition | NTSC |16:9
USA, 2013
Status:  In pre-production

Afronauts is a pre-thesis film by talented filmmaker Frances Bodomo.

It tells an alternative history of the 1960s Space Race; it’s July 16th 1969 the night of the moon landing. As America prepares to send Apollo 11 to the moon, a rag-tag group of exiles in the Zambian desert are trying to beat America to the same destination. There’s only one problem: their spacegirl, Matha, is five months pregnant. Afronauts follows characters that have not been able to find a home on earth and are therefore attracted to the promise of the space race.

Courtesy of Afronauts

Photograph by Cristina de Middel

Photograph by Cristina de Middel

Courtesy of Afronauts

Courtesy of Afronauts

This project is based on a true story. In 1964, immediately following Zambia’s independence, the dreams of space travel led science school teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso to found a National Space Academy of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse outside of Lusaka. Nkoloso was so serious about the mission, he applied for a £7,000,000 grant from U.N.E.S.C.O. which never came through.

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