Tarifa, 24th April 2018. The programme for FCAT’s 15th version brings collectively eighty films 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 movie I Am Not A Witch_,_ Zambian director Rungano Nyoni’s debut function, will open this version of the festival. A tragic story whose magical realism moved the viewers at final 12 months’s Cannes Festival, which tells the story of a younger woman held in considered one of the witch camps which proceed to exist in some African international locations. Once once more, creative high quality took precedent over content material in the number of the films from the African continent to be screened in Tarifa and Tangiers from 27th April to fifth May, not only in two completely different cities, however in two completely different continents and two completely different worlds.
This 12 months, the FCAT programme options three Nigerian films. The brief movie My Mother’s Stew by Sade Adeniran is amongst the 16 brief films which is able to compete in the Shortly competitors part. This is an animated movie a few woman who remembers pleased moments from her childhood and the odor of her favorite stew in entrance of her household dwelling.
Meanwhile, director Newton I. Aduaka will take centre stage, collaborating in a dialogue between administrators of African descent in Europe, in which they'll talk about and analyse the issues they face. Aduaka will current the movieEzra, which is amongst the films chosen by the festival to have fun its 15th anniversary. In addition, his debut functionRage will be screened for the first time in Spain in the Afrodescendants part at FCAT. Rage was the first movie to be directed by a black filmmaker in the United Kingdom.
Fourteen films, together with seven fiction options and seven documentaries, all produced between 2017 and 2018, will compete this 12 months in the festival’s official part, Long-Sightedness. The fiction titles function 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 give attention to the political state and relationships between the inhabitants and governments of varied African international locations (Burkina Faso, Gabon, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo). These activist actions replicate the Arab Springs which occurred in a number of international locations 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 international locations? A response to this query is sought in documentaries such as 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, can have its world premiere at FCAT 2018.
The present emphasis on the incorporation of feminine values into the public sphere can be obvious in the cinema of a continent which is witnessing the manner in which these modifications have gotte actuality in the social imaginary of sure international locations. In Africa, as in the remainder of the world, there's a rising pattern in films which deconstruct the patriarchal discourses which have formed feminine id.
Five up to date African administrators, the majority making their function movie debuts, will reveal 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 nightmareBeauty and The Dogs, which was proven throughout the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; Theresa Traoré Dahlberg, a director from Burkina Faso/Sweden, along with her documentaryOuaga 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 films from throughout Africa, most of which is able to be premieres in Spain, will be proven as a part of the competitors part Shortly, which is able to embody a world premiere of the animated brief movieBriska, by Tunisian director Nadia Rais.
Meanwhile, the parallel part Afroscope will present the actuality of Africa by documentaries and fiction films, with a Spanish perspective offered 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 dying; to Nelson Mandela to mark the centenary of his start; to Hugh Masekela, who lately handed away and who composed the music for the movie 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 singular alternative to uncover a wide-reaching retrospective on the work of Moroccan directorAhmed Bouai (1938-2011), considered one 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 movie Crossing the Seventh Gate, a movie essay which juxtaposes recorded conversations with movie extracts in a try to recreate the creative world of this director and poet. He can be the curator of this retrospective, which brings collectively Bouai’s cinematic work and films by different administrators from an era which labored with him and shared his imaginative and prescient of cinema. This retrospective, offered at the 2017 Berlinale, has by no means earlier than been proven in Spain. FCAT has offered Spanish subtitles for the 13 films chosen, in the hope that this may encourage different cinematic and cultural establishments in Spain to supply their audiences a chance to uncover them.
The Afrodescendants cycle will assist the platform for African descendants which the festival has turn out to be, with screenings of eight nationwide and worldwide films 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 movie festival in the Hispanic world, the 15 Years of FCAT cycle will display quite a lot of different films which have acquired each the jury and viewers awards at numerous editions of the festival. The part will function screenings of a number of films which replicate the essence of the festival, which all through its historical past has sought to present films which proceed to weave the narrative, imagery and cultural id of a multifaceted continent which is rising unstoppably and calling for its rightful place on the world stage.