Method to the Madness: African Film Fest Begins

A still from the film Restless City, by Andrew Dosunmu.

The prestigious Pan-African film Festival FESPACO (Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou) began on the 26th, and I hope to heaven above that I actually get to see some of the movies.

Yes, hope. You'd think it would be fairly easy, but good African films -- as opposed to the ubiquitous Nollywood home videos -- are very difficult to get your hands on. Distribution is rubbish on a lot of these films, so there's an entire list of movies out there that no one ever gets to see. The only reason I've seen L'Homme Qui Crie is because Air France had it in its selection on my flight from DC to Paris. Shame, that.

The good people over at Shadow and Act have a list of the film entries for this year's awards. I'll be looking to them and Bombastic Element for any news and analysis on the events as they happen between now and the 3rd of March.

However, I did manage to find some trailers (sadly, inexplicably, Andrew Dosunmu's Restless City is as yet without one, and I couldn't find anything on Moloch Tropical). I'm particularly psyched about Wanuri Kahiu's short film Pumzi and Hors de Loi. The second Nigerian-directed entry, The Figurine, looks well-acted at least -- I'm wary about anything that has to do with hocus-pocus.

And this is where I casually mention that Restless City has shown at Sundance, Pumzi has shown at Berlin's Film Festival, and Hors de Loi is nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. Awesome!

Anyway, on to the trailers!