Africa in Motion 2015: Preview

When we interviewed filmmaker Mark Cousins back in 2011 ahead of the broadcast of A Story of Film: An Odyssey, his epic 15-part history of the moving image, there was one film in particular, out of the hundreds featured, that he picked out for praise. When we asked about his ambition for the project, he said: “I'm pretty sure if people watch [The Story of Film] and they see this film Hyenas, by [Djibril Diop] Mambéty, where a woman turns half gold and comes back to avenge the lover who jilted her, they'll think, ‘I'd like to see that!’ For me, that’s the dream outcome.”

Africa in Motion, Scotland’s annual celebration of African cinema, is making Cousins’ dream come true this month: Mambéty’s 1992 film opens this year’s festival (23 Oct, Filmhouse, Edinburgh). And Cousins was dead on, it’s extraordinary – not as wildly experimental as Mambéty’s only other feature, Touki Bouki, but equally as bracing. A dark parable about human greed and twisted love, it’s centred on a decaying town on the edge of the Sahara.

We follow one of its citizens, who many years before had been seduced by a young man, impregnated, and dumped; she was then ostracised by the community and left in disgrace. 30 years later she returns ‘as rich as the world’s bank.’ The townsfolk fall over themselves to get back in her good books. Mambéty saw it as a film about “betraying the hopes of independence for the false promises of Western materialism.”

The other great giant of African filmmaking is Ousmane Sembène, and there are plenty of opportunities to get to know his work at this year’s festival. As well as a screening of his recently restored first feature, Black Girl (24 Oct, Filmhouse), there’s a new documentary about the ‘father of African cinema' called simply Sembène! (24 Oct, Filmhouse; 27 Oct, Andrew Stewart Cinema, Glasgow). The Glasgow screening is part of Screen Seminars at Glasgow University, and it'll be preceded by a lecture introducing audiences to Sembène’s career by Professor Samba Gadjigo, the world’s foremost expert on the Senegalese filmmaker and author of his official biography.

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Opening film Hyenas headlines a special strand titled From Africa, with Love, which includes tales of passion, tenderness and lust from across the continent. The festival’s other theme this year is Connections, and the programme promises to “explore the interrelatedness of the myriad aspects of African experiences.”

Epitomising the strand are films like The Dream of Shahrazad (29 Oct, Filmhouse; 25 Oct, CCA, Glasgow). Riffing on classic story collection Arabian Nights, filmmaker François Verster investigates how music and storytelling can serve as an outlet for citizens to create political change. Documentary Bound: African vs. African American (26 Oct, St. John’s Church), meanwhile, looks at lost connections and cultural tensions for people of the African Diaspora.

Another great-looking new addition is industry event Nigerian-Scottish Film Odyssey, which will explore the connections between the film industries in Nigeria and Scotland. It’ll centre around UK premieres of films from two of the brightest young Nollywood filmmakers, C.J. Obasi who will present his zombie horror film, Ojuju (31 Oct, Anderston Kelvingrove Parish Church, Glasgow; 1 Nov, The Corinthian Club, Glasgow), and Stephanie Linus, with her new film Dry (1 Nov, The Corinthian Club). While the two are here for the festival, local filmmakers will have the opportunity to pick their brains about independent filmmaking in Nigeria.

And as well as cinema, there’s a photography exhibit on the theme Ways We Watch Films in Africa and new edition AiM TV Lounge, which will present a daily selection of popular African television shows including soaps, sports shows, mockumentaries, and cooking programmes (both at The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow).

So it’s a packed programme looking both backwards and forwards. And that's what Africa in Motion has been doing for the last ten years: celebrating African cinema’s history while also looking to its future. “We could not have imagined how much the festival would grow in scope, audiences and diversity over the course of a decade,” says festival founder Lizelle Bisschoff. “The growth of Africa in Motion mirrors the growth of filmmaking on the African continent. While we celebrate ten years of Africa in Motion, we also reflect on ten years of expanding and diversifying our views of the continent and strengthening our connections with Africa.”

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Africa in Motion takes place 23 Oct-1 Nov in various venues across Edinburgh and Glasgow

For full details, go to africa-in-motion.org.uk