London African Film Festival (2008)
“The London African Film Festival hopes to disrupt old perceptions about Africa as well as offering visitors the opportunity to see the compelling stories that African film-makers are bringing to the cinema.”
“The London African Film Festival in December provides a rare opportunity to see a series of old pictures from South Africa.”
tpr media reached out to 150 contacts across arts, features, specialist magazines, online media, listings magazines and broadcast We placed three national features in the Independent, Times and New Statesman, exceeding targets. The Independent ran a full-page authored feature by Keith Shiri in the Arts & Books supplement This positioning piece provided an overview of African film today, together with ten festival highlights. Interviews were arranged with academic and activist, Lewis Nkosi and Lindiwe Dovey – who devised the Barbican programme - for a full-page feature in the Times Knowledge focusing on the role of Come Back, Africa in the anti-Apartheid movement. The wellrespected South African writer and broadcaster, Gillian Slovo, wrote an intelligent and informed three-page spread in the New Statesman on South African cinema. The piece was also highlighted in the magazine’s content page with a picture
Broadcast
There was extensive TV and radio coverage with over 10 pieces, including BBC World Service’s new arts programme The Strand, which ran two separate packages on the festival. Tendeka Matatu and Peace Aniyam were interviewed for one show on Friday 5th December Donald Mugisha was interviewed for a second show on Tuesday 9th December. tpr supplied a picture of Matatu which appeared as the top story on The Strand’s website for the week
BBC World Service’s Network Africa attended the screening of Come Back, Africa to interview Lewis Nkosi, and also interviewed Dorothy Masuka, Keith Shiri and Juwon Ogungbe, the pianist who accompanied two silent screenings. Hot Digital Radio interviewed Keith Shiri and ran a very popular on-air competition to win two tickets to the screening of Fighting Spirit at The Rich Mix. Keith Shiri was also interviewed by LifeFM, OpenAirFM, Voice of Africa, Colourful Radio Network and SOAS radio
A number of TV interviews were arranged for Vox Africa - a pan-African TV channel - who put together a package on the Festival featuring interviews with Keith Shiri, Dorothy Masuka, Lewis Nkosi and Peace Aniyam, as well as a separate interview with Sissako for their French language broadcast Ugandan Broadcasting Corporation attended the screening of Divizionz and filmed an interview with Donald Mugisha for a prime-time news package in Uganda
tpr supplied the TV and radio stations with a number of film stills and festival artwork for the packages and online, and where possible, interviews were filmed in front of LAFF branded posters.
We were also in contact with BBC Radio 3 Night Waves and Radio 4 Start the Week and Mid-Week who were all very interested in covering the festival Unfortunately, the filmmakers were unavailable.
Online
Catch A Vibe interviewed Keith Shiri for a piece displayed on their home page
Both Catch A Vibe and Shooting People – the online film community - ran competitions to win tickets to screenings.
Online coverage appeared on:
Guardian.co.uk
Filmlondon.org.uk
Catch a vibe
Visitlondon.co.uk
Eurostar com
Whatsonwhen.com
Culturecritic.co.uk
Londonlist com
Voiceofafricaradio.com – top story on home page throughout festival (organised by Marquita)
Lifefm.org.uk
Mondomix.com
Screenafrica.com
Modernghana.com
Remotegoat co uk
Istc.org (Student Travel, Information and Discounts)
Wordpress com
Afripopmag.co.uk
Colourful Network
