Yesterday’s focus on migration with the screening of Le voyage d’une vie and Die Welt generated some interesting discussions amongst filmmakers and panelists – what are the stories we tell ourselves about our destination? How does the fantasy compare with lived reality? And how do the global imbalances of power affect a migrant’s experience?
L-R: Njoki Wamain, Ferdinand Fokou, Keven Arcel Fabo Tchuinkeu, Ellen Davis-Walker, Ferdinand Foukou & Franca Hoffman.
We were lucky to have many of the audience making the journey with us between Trinity and Christ’s college to see the next film Die Welt, a film about one young man’s experience in Tunisia, and the experience that drives him to look for something different. With a well-crafted script, good characterisation, and beautiful cinematography, this engaging film had the audience buzzing with questions during the post-screening Q&A with director Alex Pitstra, producer Rosan Breman, and chair Dr Jean Khalfa (pictured below).
And as Saturday comes to a close, we start to realise that the festival is nearly over for this year…but not before some of the biggest highlights of the week!
Today a screening of Miners Shot Down, directed by Rehad Desai and produced in 2014, will bring to the fore the issues of resource extraction, labour rights, and what has been described as the ‘toxic collusion between state and capital’ in South Afirca. Miners Shot Down is the only documentary that has managed to gather the footage of the massacre of mineworkers in Marikana, killed by the police while striking at the British-owned Lonmin Platinum mine for higher wages in August 2012. We welcome Cambridge PhD candidate Alice Meyer and sociologist Theodore Menelik-Mfuni for a post-screening Q&A, as part of ‘South Africa at 20: The Freedom Tour’.
This evening we invite you all to join us for the CAFF pre-closing party at Emmanuel United Reformed Church. Come along for a screening of the Senegalese-Spanish documentary Princesa de África, African buffet, market, live music and DJs! Find out more here.
Tomorrow, the final day of the festival, is a very special one. We welcome the lyric soprano Joyce Moholoagae who will be hosting a workshop on South African Popular Song from 1.30-3.30 at the Faculty of Education in Homerton College. Join us for what is certain to be an enlivening and joyful session, and the £5 entrance fee will guarantee participants entry to the festival’s closing film Hear Me Move, South Africa’s first full-blown street dance musical at the Arts Picture House. The film will be followed by a Q&A with the film director Scottnes Smith and film choreographer Paul Modjajdi, and will feature a live performance of one of songs rehearsed at the workshop, lead by Joyce Moholoagae herself and featuring audience members. Find out more and book here!