Love themes herald 2015 Cambridge African Film Festival

  Tribute for Ousmane Sembène, other African cinema legends...

The Cambridge African Film Festival (CAFF) celebrates, which holds its 14th edition from 16 to 24 October 2015, is being funded by the (British Film Institute) BFI to put together a focus on love-themed films under From Africa, With Love.’
 

Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007)

 CAFF is the longest-running annual African film festival in the UK. Since 2002, CAFF has been screening some of the best contemporary and classic African films; increasing knowledge and awareness of African and black culture in the East of England; and providing African filmmakers with large and engaged audiences. The festival has always been completely voluntarily run by a group of people who are passionate about African film.

Reports say there are three main focus: Love Brewed in the African Pot, with a ‘dine-and-view’ evening that will consist of a pop-up restaurant in which festival participants will watch prize-winning Ethiopian film Price of Love (2014, Ethiopia, Hermon Hailay) while enjoying Ethiopian food. As part of the Love in conflict strand, which focuses on how love can overcome adversity in situations of conflict, CAFF will be hosting the screening of Kenyan film Stories of Our Lives (2014, Kenya, Jim Chuchu) with a series of short films dealing with different aspects of love among the LGBT community. The film will be preceded by experimental animated short film Yellow Fever (2012, Kenya, Ngendo Mukii), which explores the effects of Eurocentric beauty ideals, as disseminated by mainstream media. The other title in this strand will be The Great Kilapy (2012, Angola-Portugal, Zézé Gamboa). 
 

CAFF 2015 seeks to highlight the work of acclaimed African filmmakers who have been a source of inspiration in cinema production in the continent. One such filmmaker is Ousmane Sembène (1923-2007), from Senegal. His biographer and friend Samba Gadjigo has recently made a biographical documentary, Sembène! (2015, USA-Senegal, Samba Gadjigo & Jason Silverman), which we are delighted to be able to screen. Since in this documentary Sembène’s fiction film Black Girl (1966) plays a key role, and since it is the 50^th anniversary since it was made, we will also be screening this film, which many consider the first fiction feature film to be made by a sub-Saharan African.