This version of the festival might be inaugurated with a screening of the film ‘I Am Not A Witch’, by Zambian director Rungano Nyoni.
Tarifa, 25th April 2018. The programme for FCAT’s 15th version brings collectively eighty movies divided into six sectionsLong-Sightedness, Shortly, Afroscope, Around Bouai, Afrodescendants and 15 Years of FCATtogether with thirty six premieres in Spain, and two world premieres. The film I Am Not A Witch, Zambian director Rungano Nyoni’s debut characteristic, will open this version of the festival. A tragic story whose magical realism moved the viewers at final yr’s Cannes Festival, which tells the story of a younger lady held in one in every of the witch camps which live on in some African nations. Once once more, inventive high quality took precedent over content material in the choice of the movies from the African continent to be screened in Tarifa and Tangiers from 27th April to fifth May, not only in two totally different cities, however in two totally different continents and two totally different worlds.
Fourteen movies, together with seven fiction options and seven documentaries, all produced between 2017 and 2018, will compete this yr in the festival’s official part, Long-Sightedness. The fiction titles characteristic a big majority of productions from the Maghreb and Arab areas (Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt), whereas Sub-Saharan Africa is extra extensively represented in the competitors documentaries, a lot of which concentrate on the political state and relationships between the inhabitants and governments of assorted African nations (Burkina Faso, Gabon, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo). These activist actions replicate the Arab Springs which came about in a number of nations in the north of the continent a number of years in the past.
Is there hope for a democratic transition this time, as has lately occurred in different African nations? A response to this query is sought in documentaries similar to Boxing Libreville (Amédée Pacôme Nkoulou), Kinshasa Makambo (Dieudo Hamadi), Vote Off (Fayçal Hammoun) and even Synaesthesia, Cairo'13 (Maged El-Mahedy). The latter will premiere at the identical time in Spain and Morocco throughout the festival, whereas Lendemains incertains (Uncertain Future), by Eddy Munyaneza, which focuses on the uncertainty provoked by protests in opposition to the Burundian president, Pierre Nkurunziza, in 2015, may have its world premiere at FCAT 2018.
The present emphasis on the incorporation of feminine values into the public sphere can also be obvious in the cinema of a continent which is witnessing the method in which these adjustments have gotte actuality in the social imaginary of sure nations. In Africa, as in the remainder of the world, there may be a rising pattern in movies which deconstruct the patriarchal discourses which have formed feminine identification.
Five modern African administrators, the majority making their characteristic film debuts, will show this pattern in the Long-Sightedness part. Among them, in addition to Zambian Rungano Nyoni who will open the festival, we discover Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, along with her intense nightmare Beauty and The Dogs, which was proven throughout the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; Theresa Traoré Dahlberg, a director from Burkina Faso/Sweden, along with her documentary Ouaga Girls, starring girls with historically masculine occupations; and Tangiers-based director Narjiss Nejjar, who reveals a delicate a part of Morocco’s historical past in Stateless.
As for the different sections at FCAT 2018, sixteen brief movies from throughout Africa, most of which might be premieres in Spain, might be proven as a part of the competitors part Shortly, which is able to embrace a world premiere of the animated brief film Briska, by Tunisian director Nadia Rais.
Meanwhile, the parallel part Afroscope will present the actuality of Africa by way of documentaries and fiction movies, with a Spanish perspective supplied by David Reznak in the documentary CC1682 and David Gutiérrez Camps in Sotabosc (Undergrowth). In addition, this 15th version of the festival can pay particular tribute to Djibril Diop Mambéty on the 20th anniversary of his demise; to Nelson Mandela to mark the centenary of his beginning; to Hugh Masekela, who lately handed away and who composed the music for the film Mandela, Son of Africa, Father of a Nation; and to Idrissa Ouedraogo who took his final breath in February.
Around Bouai: Another Moroccan Cinema will supply the Spanish viewers a novel alternative to find a wide-reaching retrospective on the work of Moroccan director Ahmed Bouai (1938-2011), one in every of the most avant-garde Moroccan filmmakers who has paradoxically been forgotten in the historical past of Moroccan cinema. Researcher and director Ali Essafi is the creator of the film Crossing the Seventh Gate, a film essay which juxtaposes recorded conversations with film extracts in a try to recreate the inventive world of this director and poet. He can also be the curator of this retrospective, which brings collectively Bouai’s cinematic work and movies by different administrators from a technology which labored with him and shared his imaginative and prescient of cinema. This retrospective, introduced at the 2017 Berlinale, has by no means earlier than been proven in Spain. FCAT has supplied Spanish subtitles for the 13 movies chosen, in the hope that it will encourage different cinematic and cultural establishments in Spain to supply their audiences a possibility to find them.
The Afrodescendants cycle will help the platform for African descendants which the festival has change into, with screenings of eight nationwide and worldwide movies by members of the African diaspora. The 15th version of FCAT will as soon as once more be a spot for assembly, discovery, trade and debate between African and Spanish-African actors, filmmakers and artists, and the remainder of Spanish society.
Finally, as a tribute to the fifteenth anniversary of the most established African film festival in the Hispanic world, the 15 Years of FCAT cycle will display screen quite a few different movies which have obtained each the jury and viewers awards at numerous editions of the festival. The part will characteristic screenings of a number of movies which replicate the essence of the festival, which all through its historical past has sought to point out movies which proceed to weave the narrative, imagery and cultural identification of a multifaceted continent which is rising unstoppably and calling for its rightful place on the world stage.