African spring
April will have an African flavour. Two festivals are offering Belgian audiences the chance to see the latest productions from the African continent.
On the Dutch-speaking side, the Afrika Film Festival (April 11-26 in Leuven and in 12 cities in Flemish Brabant), will continue its exploration of domestic films from central Africa. Besides a day devoted to Congolese productions, the festival will present Guido Convents’ book Images et Paix, a detailed study of 100 years of cinema in Rwanda and Burundi.
Moreover, Flemish audiences will be able to discover films so far released only in Brussels or French-speaking Belgium, such as the multiple Cesar-winning The Secret of the Grain [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hafsia Herzi
film profile] by Abdellatif Kechiche (France); and Laurent Cantet’s Heading South [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laurent Cantet
interview: Robin Campillo
interview: Simon Arnal-Szlovak
film profile] (France).
The Festival will open on April 11 with a screening of Newton Aduaka’s Ezra [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (France/Austria/ Nigeria), winner of the Golden Unicorn at Amiens Film Festival last November.
On the French-speaking side, the 4th Brussels African Film Festival (April 17-22), will also screen its share of unreleased titles, including the French/Guinean film Clouds Over Conakry by Cheik Fantamady Camara, which is set to open the event.
For the past three years, the Festival has placed particular emphasis on documentary films. This year, it will organise a competition for African directors, in which several European productions will compete, including Katy N’diaye’s En attendant les hommes (“Whilst Waiting for the Men”), produced by Néon Rouge (Belgium); and Samson Giorgis’s Le Retour de l’Obélisque (“Return of the Obelisk”), produced by Margo Films (France).
Other European co-productions feature in the line-up, in the sections “Crossed Gazes” and “Musicadoc”. The latter is a musical journey across the continent, and Tanzania in particular, with Andy Jones’ As Old As My Tongue (Screenstation, UK) and Jean-Philippe Martin’s Manou Gallo, Femme de Rythme (“Manou Gallo, Woman of Rhythm”, Iota Production, Belgium).
(Translated from French)
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