Film Africa is nearly done for another year, but there is still plenty worth leaving the house for. The festival closes on Sunday 1 November, and its last few days move between family dramas, documentaries, old film history and new work from across the continent and diaspora.
We have picked out five things we would keep an eye on...
Dear Ajayi
Damilola Orimogunje’s Nigerian-German drama puts two estranged sisters back in the same home when their mother becomes seriously ill. It is set in 1990s Nigeria and looks at old resentments, care and the things family members cannot quite bring themselves to say.
Let Them Be Seen
Nolitha Refilwe Mkulisi’s documentary goes to Tapoleng, following a community reconnecting with ancestral spirituality and its own sense of self. It is a documentary, but not only that: the programme describes it as moving through fiction and satire too.
Language of the Wind
Shimataver Igbawua’s Hausa-language drama follows a teenage bride who wants a life beyond the one already mapped out for her. Friday’s programme is stacked, but this is the one we would not want to lose in the noise: a small-scale story about tradition, pressure and the pull of elsewhere.
Filming Against the Odds
Saturday afternoon offers something different. Filming Against the Odds brings together Férid Boughedir’s Caméra arabe and Caméra d’Afrique, then opens out into a conversation with the filmmaker. If you want to spend a few hours thinking about who gets to make images, write histories and shape a cinema culture, this is the one.
Lady
Film Africa ends with Olive Nwosu’s Lady, a debut feature set in Lagos. It follows a cab driver whose life changes after she meets a group of sex workers, opening up a new sense of friendship, freedom and possibility. Nwosu is a Nigerian-born, London-based filmmaker, so it makes for a particularly fitting closing-night choice.
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