A world first will be taking place this
month when a full week of African documentary films are broadcast across
sub-Saharan Africa on DStv
channel ED (channel 190) and GOtv (channel 65).This unique
film event will see a diverse and exciting range of films screened across 49
countries of sub-Saharan Africa, to coincide with the Durban International Film
Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from July
17th – 27th.
The diverse range of stories from East, West and Southern Africa provide both
historical and current insights into our amazing continent.Coach Zoran &
His African Tigers – South Sudan As South Sudan approaches its third
anniversary as the world’s newest nation, it is apt that one of the films to be
screened takes a unique perspective on the country.Coach Zoran & His
African Tigers follows the
country’s ambition to re-enter the world football stage with a newly formed
national team.
South Sudan became an independent state
in July 2011, following almost 50 years of civil war. Although still steeped in
the memories of countless victims of violence, the new nation is seeking to
make a place on the international soccer stage by forming its first national
team.The man called in for this task is the Serbian Zoran Djordjevic, a dynamic
and hugely ambitious veteran coach. The film follows the team over its
first year, from the hunt for new players to buying a sheep called Champion as
its mascot and the first international games. Zoran’s aggressive and even
dictatorial style soon leads to conflict with the chair of the soccer
federation and several senior politicians. As the euphoria of
independence subsides, the team finds itself hit by bitter infighting, malaria
and a financial crisis that threatens the state itself. What follows is a
darkly comic and original portrait of the birth of a nation.
Coach Zoran & His African Tigers
screens on Tuesday
July 22nd at 21:00 (GMT
+ 2).
Day By Day: Femi Kuti
Day By Day: Femi Kuti is more than a biopic, but rather gives real insight into
every aspect of the creative process. As the film follows the development of a
track from Femi Kuti's latest album, it sets out to explain the artistic
decisions. These choices are inseparable from Femi’s involvement in the
political situation in his home country, Nigeria.Correct arrangements and bold
choices involving one guitar strumming patterns over another, woven together
with a choir’s harmony, come together to bring forth the artist's message. The
film then also sheds light on the unsung work of the record producer, Sodi, in
the specific context of urban and anti-establishment music : Afrobeat.
Day by Day explores this musical journey through
the Parisian studio as well as documents the intimidation Femi is subject
to in Nigeria because of his opposition to the current regime. The documentary
shifts between the object of the artist’s struggle; his fight to lift Nigeria
and Africa as a whole out of the despondent poverty, and the proof of his
commitment and tools of his trade: haunting, catchy songs.
Day By Day: Femi Kuti
will screen on Wednesday July 23rd at 21:00 (GMT + 2).
Mama Africa
Mama Africa, the biography of Miriam Makeba, South
African singer and anti-apartheid activist; the voice and the hope of
Africa. Miriam Makeba was the first African musician to become a true
international star. Her music influenced artists across the globe but always remained
true to her South African roots with its message against racism and poverty.This
documentary, directed by Mika Kaurismäki, traces her life and music through
more than fifty years of performing. Using rare archive footage of her
performances, interviews and intimate scenes filmed over the years, we are
shown a unique person, a world icon. Friends and colleagues, some who knew her
since she started performing in the dance halls of South Africa (remember “Pata
Pata”), together with her grandchildren Zenzi Monique Lee and Nelson Lumumba
Lee, allow us know the remarkable journey of Miriam Makeba.
Miriam Makeba left
a big legacy behind, not only in South Africa but throughout the world.
Her unique melodic voice became the voice of freedom and diginity for her
people, both old and young. However, the film does not only tell the history of
Miriam Makeba, but also showcases South Africa's present day, by introducing
younger artists, who may have just been born when Mama Africa was still in
exile and banned, but who were inspired by her and her art nevertheless.”
Mama Africa will be screened on Friday
July 25th at 19:30 (GMT + 2).
The Irresistible Rise of Moïse Katumbi
- DRC
The Irresistible Rise of Moïse Katumbi, big-time entrepreneur and director of
the Tout Puissant Mazembe soccer team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
as well as being governor of
Katanga, Congo’s richest province, which is home to some 80 percent of the
country’s natural resources Moïse Katumbi is an extraordinary character. Coming
from a mixed Jewish-Congolese family, this self-made man is today one of the
most powerful people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Director Thierry
Michel has been making films in Africa for many years, and has also known
Katumbi for a long time, enabling him to gain unprecedented access to the
governor. The film crew
accompanies him on working visits where he is cheered by employees who are
invariably underpaid and do dangerous and unhealthy jobs without any form of
labor protection.
The Irresistible Rise of Moïse Katumbi
will be screened on Monday July 21st at 21:00 (GMT + 2).
Miners Shot Down
Miners Shot Down, the documentary that many commentators
have said every South African should see, is also resonating deeply with
international audiences due to its global themes of democracy, worker’s rights,
citizen activism and freedom of speech.
The film, which will be screened on Thursday 24th July at
19:30 on
DStv channel 190 and GOtv channel 65 as part of the AfriDocs Film Week,
will also be screened during the Durban International Film Festival. In the
four short months since it was released, Miners
Shot Down has been
screened to large numbers of people at film festivals across the globe, in
Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and Australasia and will be shown in a host
of festivals over the coming months, including special 20 Years of Democracy
screenings in Berlin and New York.
With 2014 being used by many to
showcase the achievements of South Africa’s 20 years of democracy, Miners Shot
Down presents an alternative view – one that needs to be seen and heard beyond
the borders of South Africa.
Miners Shot Down will be screened on
Thursday July 24th at
19:30 (GMT + 2).
Concerning Violence – Pan Africa
Concerning Violence is a bold and fresh visual narrative from Africa based on
newly discovered archive material covering the most daring moments in the
struggle for liberation from colonial rule. This powerful footage is combined
with text from Frantz Fanon’s landmark book The
Wretched of the Earth - written in 1960 and still a major tool
for understanding and illuminating the neocolonialism happening today, as well
as the unrest and the reactions against it. The film describes the uprisings that led to Africa’s
decolonisation. Once again, Olsson concentrates on archive material filmed in
Africa by Swedish documentary filmmakers and television journalists between
1966 and 1984. Footage of liberation movements in Angola, the Frelimo in
Mozambique and the struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau are juxtaposed
with documentary images of Swedish missionaries in Tanzania and a strike in a
Swedish mine in Liberia.
Musician Lauryn Hill brings to life
Fanon’s polarising texts which structure and provide commentary on the film’s
visual material. A glimpse of today’s smouldering conflicts along the old
colonial borders shows that, even 50 years after Fanon’s death, Africa is still
dealing with the consequences of centuries of European raids and interventions.
Concerning Violence will screen on
Tuesday July 22nd at
18:00 (GMT + 2).
ABOUT AFRIDOCS FILM WEEK
The AfriDocs Film Week will connect the largest film festival
in Africa through a ‘film festival at home’ featuring documentary films from
thirteen countries in Africa – D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger,
Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia.
“So many documentary films have been
shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences”, says AfriDocs Executive Producer Don Edkins from
Steps in Cape Town, “this heralds a new era of distribution for the continent.”
Films by African filmmakers Idrissa Guiro,
Sani Elhadj, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, Andrey Samoute Diarra,
together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams,
Abby Ginsberg and Göran Olsson amongst others, will be seen for the first time
by a wide audience through this collaboration.Seven of the films screening at
the Durban Film Festival (DIFF) will also be part of the programme, including
the award-winningMiners Shot Down, Concerning Violence, I Afrikaner, The Irresistible Rise of Moise
Katumbi, Coach Zoran, Plot for Peace and Soft Vengeance.
This week long film event is a special
broadcast project from AfriDocs, the first weekly primetime documentary
strand broadcasting across Africa. Every Tuesday night on ED (DStv channel 190) and
GOtv (channel 65), AfriDocs screens top African documentaries
to 49 countries by satellite, and terrestrially to an additional 100 cities in
8 countries.
AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded
South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in
partnership with the Bertha Foundation.
