africaworldfilmfestival.com
april 17-20 FREE
D L R O W A C I R F A M L I F Y R A T N E M DOCU L A V I T S FE
brought to you by:
location: University of Kansas 1445 Jayhawk Blvd. Wescoe Hall 3139 & 3140
Letter from the Festival Director . . . Greetings: Welcome to the 6th E. Desmond Lee Africa World Documentary Film Festival (AWDFF), sponsored by the E. Desmond Lee Professorship in African/African-American Studies, International Studies and programs at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Through the art of documentary filmmaking, the AWDFF is committed to the promotion of knowledge, life and culture and of the people of Africa worldwide. This year, in our sixth season, we shall be presenting 46 films submitted by filmmakers from Australia, the Bahamas, Burkina Faso, Canada, Cameroon, Congo, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Israel, Japan, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, the United Kingdom, Uganda and the USA. We celebrate and congratulate the extraordinary group of talented filmmakers who have employed their craft and skills in the exploration of African subjects. Some of the major subjects covered in these documentary films are cultural, socio-economic, environmental, history, gender, legal, music and performing arts, religion, politics, sports, as well as human rights issues. This year we are fortunate to continue our important collaboration with the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, University of Yaoundé in Cameroon, St. Louis University’s Sam and Marilyn Fox Atlas Week Program, University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., and the “I Will Tell” International Film Festival in London, England. We are also quite thrilled to announce our new collaboration with the University of West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, the University of the
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Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa (thanks to the UMSAEP program) and the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies in Philadelphia. As always, my plethora of appreciation goes to International Studies and Programs, especially Director Dr. Joel Glassman and Mr. Ephrem Andemariam, the Coordinator of African/African American Studies and the film festival, and the University of Missouri South Africa Exchange Program (UMSAEP). I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the following individuals: Mr. MK Stalling, Ms. Alex Detrick and the staff at Missouri History Museum; Mr. Owen Keith Woodard, Dr. Donatus Tandem University of Yaoundé in Cameroon; Dr. James Scott, Dr. Joya Uraizee and Dr. Michelle Lorenzini of St. Louis University; Dr. Christina Lux and Dr. Beverly Mack of the University of Kansas; Ms. Jenny Lee of “I Will Tell” International Film Festival in London; Dr. Tunde Bewaji, Dr. Rachel Moseley-Wood and Dr. Franklyn St. Juste of the University of West Indies in Jamaica; Dr. Leolyn Jackson of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa; and Dr. Molefi Asante and Dr. Ama Mazama of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies in Philadelphia. Enjoy the Festival. ‘Niyi Coker, Jr. E. Desmond Lee Professor Festival Director
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Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Wednesday 17 April, 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday 17 April, 8:30 p.m.
GUERILLA GRANNIES
MAMA AFRICA
They risked their lives for freedom after 500 years of colonialism. Now the “Grannies” struggle to live in a globalized Mozambique. For 10 years, three guerrilla girls were fighting for freedom in Mozambique against Portuguese rule. Years ago, director Ike Bertels saw a BBC film about the liberation army - FRELIMO. Bertels was touched by Monica, Maria and Amelia, who had made the choice to fight. She found them, learned Portuguese and filmed them in 1984, 1994 and again in 2012. She showed the extent to which ideals from the revolution shaped Mozambique. Today the grannies struggle with their children and grandchildren.
This is a documentary about world-famous South African singer Miriam Makeba, who spent half a century traveling the world and spreading her political message to fight racism, poverty and promote justice and peace. It’s a tribute to a woman who embodied the hopes and the voices of Africa as no other. Miriam Makeba was an inspiration to musicians all over the world and a delight for international audiences. She remained true to her South African musical roots. She was forced into early exile from her homeland in 1959 as a result of her involvement in the indictment of the Apartheid system in South Africa.
FILM SCHEDULE
Director: Ike Bertels (80 min)
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Director: Mika Kaurismäki (90 min)
Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Thursday 18 April, 7:00 p.m.
Thursday 18 April, 8:35 p.m.
WOODSTOCK IN TIMBUKTU
WAR DON DON
Director: Désirée von Trotha (80 min)
Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen (85 min)
This is a documentary about a music festival in the Sahara, as well as the nomadic culture and way of life. In January 2011 the international Festival au Désert took place over three days in the dunes of Timbuktu, Mali, in West Africa. Hosted by the Tuareg or Kel Tamasheq, as they call themselves, the festival is the ideal setting for an encounter with this legendary people. Through intimate insight into nomadic life and ancient traditions, the Kel Tamasheq tell us of their plight, their fears and their fight for survival. The film follows three bands from different regions, each telling their unique story.
In the heart of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the “special court.” Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors say Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of heinous crimes against humanity. His defenders say he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in bringing peace to Sierra Leone. Covering unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and, from behind bars with Sesay himself, the documentary puts international justice on trial for the world to see — finding that in some cases the past is not just painful, it is also opaque.
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Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Friday 19 April, 7:00 p.m.
Friday 19 April, 8:40 p.m.
KINSHASHA SYMPHONY
THE ONE WHO BUILDS
Two hundred orchestral musicians are playing Beethoven’s Ninth – Freude schöner Götterfunken. A power cut strikes just a few bars before the last movement. Problems like this are the least of the worries facing the only symphony orchestra in the Congo. In the 15 years of its existence, the musicians have survived two coups, various crises and a war. Concentration on the music and hopes for a better future keep them going. “Kinshasa Symphony” is a study of people in one of the world’s most chaotic cities doing their best to maintain one of the most complex systems of joint human endeavor: a symphony orchestra.
TVs around America light up every night with the news of people displaced by war, famine and political unrest. The struggles of refugees are often seen as a distant problem, a world away from the living rooms of America and only a click away from something more entertaining. What Americans often do not realize is that some of these displaced persons are their neighbors. “The One Who Builds” is about the life and work of Dr. Omer Omer, once a Sudanese refugee, now an American citizen who is giving back as the director of a refugee resettlement organization in Greensboro, North Carolina. Omer has transcended boundaries dictated by society, race and religion to build a new village, one friendship at a time.
FILM SCHEDULE
Director: Claus Wischmann, Martin Baer (95 min)
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Directors: Hillary Pierce, Nick Gooler, Peter Carolla (37 min)
Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Saturday 20 April, 1:00 p.m.
Saturday 20 April, 2:20 p.m.
TAKEO
BITTERSWEET
Director: Takashi Tokida (76 min)
Director: Peter Bicknell, Andrew Kappel (19 min)
“Takeo” is an inspirational film about a young Japanese musician with Down syndrome. Takeo Nikura interacts with people through the power of music. Having attempted to play several instruments throughout his development, Takeo found a love for African drumming after participating in a drumming workshop in elementary school. At 24 years old and with many performances under his belt, he finally achieves his long-held dream of taking a drumming workshop in Senegal, the homeland of his beloved instrument. The documentary follows his development as a musician and as an individual. Takeo’s enthusiasm for music is inspirational; his journey, unforgettable.
“Bittersweet” is a film that highlights the work being done by Conservation Alliance, a non-governmental organization with project sites throughout Western Africa. Conservation Alliance works with farmers to implement sustainable farming practices. They train cocoa farmers in the correct ways to grow and cultivate the crop without damaging the environment or harming themselves.
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Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Saturday 20 April, 2:45 p.m.
Saturday 20 April, 3:50 p.m.
I AM GAY AND MUSLIM
THE THING THAT HAPPENED
For this film Chris Belloni spent the major part of 2011 in Morocco, where homosexuality is punishable by law. This intimate documentary follows a number of young Moroccan gay men in their exploration of their religious and sexual identity. The men portrayed in the film openly share their personal experiences and talk about the ambiguity and secretiveness of the life they feel condemned to live. Some have openly acknowledged their sexual orientation. The documentary aims to raise awareness and break the taboo surrounding homosexuality while exposing a broad spectrum of dilemmas that these gay men struggle with or have overcome in the past.
Near the remote trading center of Bweyale in Northern Uganda sits the tiny campus of Hope North Vocational and Secondary school. The students here are a mix of former child soldiers, orphans and abjectly poor kids, displaced by the 22-year-old civil war in Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UDPF). The teachers are mostly rookie educators fresh out of Ugandan universities. Their teaching tools amount to little more than their own wits and a scattering of outdated textbooks. But deficiencies or not, the school is the only chance these kids have to escape their tragic histories. Their story becomes a metaphor for personal identity, the resiliency of the human spirit and the power of hope.
FILM SCHEDULE
Director: Chris Belloni (59 min)
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Director: Andrew Walton (20 min)
Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Saturday 20 April, 4:15 p.m.
Saturday 20 April, 5:00 p.m.
LOST BOY HOME
WOLF CALL
Director: Mark Barger Elliot (40 min)
Director: Rob Underhill (12 min)
Rev. Zachariah Char left his home village in Sudan in 1987 after the Islamic government declared that all males in Christian South Sudan would be killed. Approximately 27,000 boys and young men fled the Sudan and settled in refugee camps in Ethiopia, where they remained for four years. In 1991, deteriorating conditions forced many to travel to Kenya, where they were relocated to Kakuma, a U.N. refugee camp. Tragically, only 12,000 boys and young men survived this extraordinarily arduous journey. In 2001, the U.S. and other nations granted visas to those in the Kakuma camp. In the West they became known as the “Lost Boys.” Nearly 4,000 settled in the U.S., including Zachariah.
It is 1956. In the previous year, 14-year-old Emmett Till from Chicago had gone missing in Money, Mississippi. Later, the boy’s mutilated body was found in a river. William Bradford Huie of Look magazine sits down with the two men acquitted of the boy’s murder, Roy Bryant Jr. and J.W. Milam, to discuss the trial. Not a word had been uttered outside a courtroom by them or their kin, until now. The film is a true story crafted from the public record that became a lightning rod for moral outrage, pivotal in inspiring a whole generation to commit to social change in the 1950s.
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Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Saturday 20 April, 5:15 p.m.
Saturday 20 April, 5:50 p.m.
DAVID DRISKELL: IN SEARCH OF CREATIVE TRUTH
MY MOTHER’S CLUB
FILM SCHEDULE
Director: Richard Kane (29 min) This documentary is a story about one of today’s most important artists and leading authorities on African American art. The film captures David Driskell making collages inspired by his mentor Romare Bearden. Driskell’s powerful art draws from abstract expressionism, African art/masks, Coptic art, modernism and cubism. The film documents him in conversation with National Gallery curator Ruth Fine, as well as painting at his easel in his studio in Falmouth, Maine. The film also explores the give-and-take of his creative relationship with master print maker, Curlee Holton.
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Director: Rodney M. Thompson (57 min) This is a film that centers on the African American women’s social clubs in Kansas City during the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. The story, told from the perspectives of daughters of club members, focuses on the impact of these clubs on Kansas City’s AfricanAmerican community through their social activities, volunteerism, and social activism.
Africa World Documentary Film Festival 2013
Saturday 20 April, 7:00 p.m.
Saturday 20 April, 8:30 p.m.
RED, WHITE, BLACK & BLUE
DEAR MANDELA
Director: James Brown (81 min)
Students from South Los Angeles fly to New Zealand to play rugby, a sport that is gaining popularity in the United States. The tour provides these students and the Kiwi teams they battle a rare opportunity to dig beneath the surface of things. The film provides a sensitive take on a rough game: it blends on-field triumph with off-field tragedy. On the field, troubled histories melt away, and we see boys rise as men and girls lead as women. Rugby was last an Olympic sport in 1924, when the U.S. won the gold medal. If the spirit of these teens is any indication, the title may just be defensible.
Director: Dara Kell, Christopher Nizza (93 min) When the South African government promises to ‘eradicate the slums’ and begins to evict shack dwellers far outside the city, three young friends who live in Durban’s vast shantytowns refuse to be moved and decide to stand up for their rights. “Dear Mandela” follows the journey of these three young people from their shacks to the highest court in the land as they invoke Nelson Mandela’s example and become leaders in a growing social movement. By turns inspiring, devastating and funny, the film offers a new perspective on the role that young people can play in political change and is a fascinating portrait of South Africa coming of age.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS KU Film Selection Committee:
Marwa Ghazali, Zachary Ingle, Christina Lux and David Sutera
With input from: Yacine Daddi-Addoun, Randi Hacker, Randal Jelks and Beverly Mack
Nadia Imafidon, Tommy King and Jessie Yoon
UMSL AWDFF Staff: Ephrem Andemariam SPONSORS: EGARC, KU LIBRARIES, MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS, SOCIOLOGY, HISTORY, HONORS PROGRAM, AMERICAN STUDIES, AAAS, CEAS, FRENCH & ITALIAN, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE, WGSS, ANTHROPOLOGY, FILM & MEDIA STUDIES, POLITICAL SCIENCE, ECONOMICS