DURBAN, South Africa (CU)_The month of May is recognised as the Africa month, a time when the continent commemorates the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the African Union. Accordingly, the African Diaspora International Film Festival is set to celebrate the occasion virtually from 28 to 31 May, with a selection of 18 films and documentaries which explore the continent through the eyes of 15 different African nations.
The event will include a Q&A session with feminist Malawian filmmaker, Shemu Joyah, via Zoom on 29 May, during which a discussion will be held on two of his fiction films, The Last Fishing Boat, which is about a struggling fisherman who deals with rumours his son sleeps with tourists for money, and Seasons of a Life, which about housemaid who is sexually abused by her boss and made pregnant, is forced to give up her son in order to go on with her education.
Many of the films and documentaries selected for the occasion have been nominated in domestic and international film festivals, including the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Munich Film Festival, the MOMA New Directors New Films and the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.
Six of these films, namely The Last Tree by Shola Amoo (UK), Kinshasa Makambo by Dieudo Hamadi (DRC), Fevers by Hicham Ayouch (France, Morocco), The Pirogue by Mousa Touré (Senegal), Nothing But the Truth by John Kani (South Africa), Faraw: Mother of the Dunes by Abbdoulaye Ascofa (Mali), have won major awards at the aforementioned film festivals and others.
Other must-watch films in the line-up include A Taste of our Land by Yuhi Amuli (Rwanda), which is a film about greed told against the backdrop of the current Chinese influence in African countries, as well as Shaihu Umar by Adamu Halilu (Nigeria), a film which explores the little discussed topic of the trans-African slave trade in the late 19th century.
In May 1963, 32 heads of African States met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to sign the Charter creating Africa’s first post-independence continental association, The Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Its successor, The African Union (AU), was officially launched in July 2002, in Durban, South Africa.
In commemoration of the event, that the Department of Arts and Culture of South Africa is also set host a series of events to celebrate Africa Day on 25 May and throughout the month.
