Africa at the Pictures - Independence Days
28 November- 7 December 2008 at selected venues in London

http://www.richmix.org.uk/cinema_film_independays.html

Independence Days is a reflection on African independence and freedom in producing films. African cinema came into being in the 1960s as a child of African independence. Many countries freed themselves from European colonial rule in the 1960s and it was only then that some Africans began to participate in film production.

Before the end of apartheid in South Africa, it was impossible for indigenous South African filmmakers to make films. The apartheid regime vigorously defended its ideology and was very apprehensive about stories and images that were deemed subversive that filmmaking was suppressed unless it was ridiculing Africans as in Jamie Uys’ Gods Must Be Crazy (1984)

Although the Lumiere brothers made the first presentation of film in South Africa in May 1896 within a year of the invention of the first motion picture, it was not until 1998 that the first film by a black South African filmmaker was made. Titled Fools (1998), the film is directed by Ramadan Suleman, who had worked with Souleyemane Cissé the Malian film director.

At FESPACO *2005, South African films won four awards including the grand prize of Etalon D' or De Yennega that went to Drum by Zola Maseko. The Etalon D’or Yennega, which an international jury hands out every second year in the Burkinabe capital, Ouagadougou, is the most prestigious African film award.

Drum is a much-celebrated film in South Africa. It takes viewers back to the toughest part of apartheid era, a Johannesburg township in the 1950s, where a hard-drinking journalist struggles against the unjust regime. Scenes from township jazz clubs and bars dominate the film. _

Drum opens our monthly programme on African cinema which starts at the Richmix in April 2008. The film is screening with Meokgo and the Stickfighter a short film by Teboho Mahlatsi one of South Africa’s most creative and skilful filmmakers the film tells the story of Kgotso, a reclusive stickfighter who lives high up in the Maluti Mountains of Lesotho. While tending his sheep and playing his concertina, he sees a beautiful woman staring dreamily at him from the water….

To commemorate the Africa Day on 25 May we are selecting a number of short films. We will have a day of screenings and discussions with invited guests. There are films from Zanzibar, Cameroon, Rwanda, as well as Angola.

Angola a country ravaged by war for over 30 years since its independence from Portugal in 1975 is our focus in November. One of Africa’s major oil producer, Angola is one of the poorest countries in Africa.

The death of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi in a gunfight with government forces in February 2002 raised the prospect of peace and the army and rebels signed a ceasefire in April to end the conflict.
O Heroi (The Hero) an Angolan film directed by Zeze Gamboa,.tells the story of Vitorio, a 35-year-old soldier and veteran of the Angolan civil war.

He is discharged from the Army after stepping on a landmine and losing his leg. Returning to the capital city of Luanda, he finds himself homeless and penniless in a city still littered with memories of the war.
One night he is robbed of his prosthetic leg and his war medal. While waiting for a replacement at the hospital he meets Joanne, a flirtatious schoolteacher who has connections with the government.
Mobutu King of Zaire is a remarkable documentary on Mobutu Sese Seko the former president of Zaire now Congo. Mobutu robbed his country blind, plunging his own people into misery, poverty and despair. With Zaire's diamond mines at his disposal, his personal fortune eventually surpassed Zaire's billion dollar national debt -- and he did it all with the support and encouragement of U.S. and European politicians who saw him as a bulwark against communism.

Zanzibar Soccer Queens directed by Florence Ayisi is an enlightening portrait of Zanzibarian women’s determination to play football.

In Le Franc, the maverick Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety was meant together with The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun as part of a trilogy entitled Tales of Ordinary People. Mambety’s untimely death in 1998 prevented the completion of the third film. Mambety was a skiful story teller and had a genius in constructing fiction films that reflect the economic tribulations of ordinary people through everyday dramas.

It is our way of beginning an offering a regular programme of African films to our London audience and our way of celebrating fifty years of African cinema.

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