Africa in Motion festival restructure and 2020 online edition

Africa in Motion (AiM) is Scotland’s major annual celebration of African cinema, bringing a wide variety of creative stories from across the African continent. Taking place from Friday 30 October to Sunday 29 November 2020, Africa in Motion will present their landmark 15th festival edition entirely online due to the unique circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since its inception in 2006, AiM has introduced nearly 45,000 audience members to the brilliance and diversity of African cinema, screening over 600 films. This year’s edition will include screenings of over 70 features and shorts, as well as 25 complementary events including a digital dine & view, a Nollywood red carpet event, music sessions, filmmaker Q&As, workshops and masterclasses. This year also marks a new re-structure in the make-up of the festival.

Newly-appointed director of Africa in Motion, Liz Chege says: “In a year where the world is being stretched in so many ways, it’s a testament to our incredible team that we have been able to continue our mission to highlight the rich diversity of African filmmaking and storytelling. We are passionate about expanding audience understanding and appreciation of African film and cultures across the UK. I am excited and delighted to call AiM my new home.”

Women in Focus

As conversations about the underrepresentation of women in cinema and the #MeToo movement reverberate around the world, the festival continues to draw attention to women who steadfastly blaze the trail behind the camera.

AiM's Women in Focus strand includes the opening film Dhalinyaro (Lula Ali Ismail, Djibouti, 2019) a tender coming-of-age tale that is also the first feature to be directed by a female director from Djibouti.

Khartoum Offside (Marwa Zein, Sudan, 2019) follows the story of a group of exceptional young women in Khartoum determined to play football professionally, and Waiting for Men (Katy Lena Ndiaye, Mauritania, 2007) is an intimate portrait of women talking about views on marriage, motherhood, sexuality and desire, in a society where many of the menfolk are absent due to labour migration.

Queer Africa

The Queer Africa strand is a spotlight on the shifting landscape of African queerness. AiM present a raw, honest and intimate collection of stories from the queer community across the African continent as well as the diaspora. This includes Kenyan, Christian and Queer (Aiwan Obinyan, UK 2020), I Am Samuel (Peter Murimi, Kenya, 2020) and ‘Days, Nights’ - a collection of African and diaspora shorts.

Industry

For the Industry strand, AiM are thrilled to connect a diverse and bold array of industry professionals and artists with a wider than ever before UK audience. Taking place throughout November, audiences can tune in to masterclasses and Q&As with the creatives behind the programme selection. This includes Prof Kehinde Andrews (Back to Black), Emmy award-winner Rehad Desai (Miners Shot Down, Everything Must Fall), Toni Kamau, the youngest female African documentary producer to be invited as a member of the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and many more.

Mamas

The Mamas strand is an offering of films that examine our mothership connection. The Letter (Maia Lekow, Chris King, Kenya, 2019) is a shocking portrayal of murderous avarice rooted in the desire to purloin ancestral land, while 143 Sahara Street (Hassen Ferhani, Algeria 2019) is a contemplative and sweet documentary about a lone woman that runs a roadside truck stop along the desert’s Route nationale 1.

Based on a true story, from 1970s apartheid South Africa, Poppie Nongena (Christiaan Olwagen, South Africa, 2020) is a woman whose life revolves around her family, finding stability in a period of immense upheaval. In This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, Lesotho 2019) an 80-year-old widow who is winding up her earthly affairs and preparing to die, finds a new will to live and ignites a collective spirit of defiance within her community.

Diaspora

For the Diaspora strand, AiM invite you to explore the rich and varied perspectives of African Diaspora experiences from transatlantic cultures. AiM partner again with Mostra de Cinemas Africanos in Brazil to showcase several shorts packages that present the possibilities of Afrofuturist worlds and the battle for individual, personal ideals.


Carmen Thompson, Co-director of this year’s festival says: “We have been on completely new ground putting together a digital festival, but the 2020 programme has turned out to be one of our richest and varied yet. I have no doubt that this year’s edition is going to provide the space for discovery, conversation and connection that Africa in Motion has become known for in Scotland – now to an even wider audience!”

View the festival programme: www.africa-in-motion.org.uk

More about Africa in Motion

Africa in Motion is an audience-based festival, founded in 2006. The main aims of the festival have been, since its inception, to introduce Scottish audiences to the brilliance of African cinema and to overcome the underrepresentation and marginalisation of African film in British film-going culture.

The festival is funded by National Lottery funding distributed by Screen Scotland. Other funders include Voluntary Action Fund, Being Human Festival, Film Hub Scotland, University of Strathclyde, University of Glasgow, University of Stirling, Scottish Documentary Institute and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Header image: Softie (2020)