“The screenplay for Kinshasa Kids was born out of a kaleidoscope of different lives.” These words, by the Belgian film director Marc-Henri Wainberg, say a lot about this movie. It won the Council of Europe’s prize for human rights, and can be described as an attempt to provide an insight into Kinshasa’s street life through…
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The young woman talks to the man. He is motionless, he doesn’t answer. He can’t. He has been wounded in a fight with a bullet in his neck and is now in a coma. The woman, his wife, has been assisting him for weeks. Healing him as she can and following the mullah’s advice,…
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Shakespeare in South Africa? It’s not the case. Despite the title, jealousy is only one part of the award-winning South African film Otelo Burning. Set in 1988, on the eve of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the film deals with many subjects, as acknowledged by the director, Sara Blecher: “What you think when you…
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The film has been selected for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, in Hollywood. “The story of a city… It is simply Nairobi”. In Kiambu, a small town in Central Province, Kenya, life is all about farming and not much else. 19-year old Mwas tries to convince a group of…
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The artistic director of the African film festival of Verona, Fabrizio Colombo – a Comboni Missionary who also is the director of the web based Afriradio – was recently presented with a special prize by the Zanzibar International Film Festival. “Every year the most important festival of African cinema in East Africa – says…
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After six years at the helm of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), Martin Mhando moves on. Mhando is a Tanzanian filmmaker. He has directed feature films and documentaries. His Maangamizi has won a number of awards and was selected to represent Tanzania at the Oscar in 2002 for the Best Foreign Film. He is…
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One key way the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival (T&T) is able to grow and remain a vibrant, cutting-edge entity is through its associations with other film festivals. Some of T&T team attend major festivals such as Toronto, Miami and Cannes, and they are in partnerships with other festivals, such as Femi in Guadeloupe and ZIFF in Zanzibar.…
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2011 Zanzibar International Film Festival’s top winner was The Rugged Priest. The film received the Golden Dhow and won the Verona Award, the prize the African Film Festival of Verona awards at the Zanzibar’s event. It also won in eight categories of the Kalasha awards. The film premiered in Europe during the African Film…
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The very first Festival of African Cinema in Italy took place in Verona in 1981. Today, 31 years later, it is still going strong. It has also become one of the beacons of African cinema in Europe. The Festival has shown great vitality, going from the militant films of the 1980s to modern production,…
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At the end of June, Zanzibar welcomed once again its own film festival, the ZIFF. The 14th edition of the festival, themed Season of Visions, presented a vast selection of films, documentaries, short stories, cartoons and experimental movies. The large participation of emerging film makers underlines how the ZIFF has become an important rendezvous for…
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I arrived among the Nuer in November 2005. It was my first mission assignment. I had expectantly waited for that moment throughout many years of…
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The animals were lonely. They stood in the forest talking to one another, wondering how they could each get a wife to keep them company and…
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Human society, of which we are all a part, is facing an environmental catastrophe unprecedented in history. The planet is in dire condition and ecosystems that…
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