‘Confusion Na Wa’ to open New York African Film Festival

This, according to a release, “is in celebration of the centenary of Nigeria’s unification.” The event which is the 21st in the series has as theme: ‘Revolution and Liberation in the Digital Age’ and will run from May 7 – 13.The centrepiece film for the fiesta is BiyiBandele’s directed ‘Half of a Yellow Sun,’ starring […]

This, according to a release, “is in celebration of the centenary of Nigeria’s unification.”
The event which is the 21st in the series has as theme: ‘Revolution and Liberation in the Digital Age’ and will run from May 7 – 13.
The centrepiece film for the fiesta is BiyiBandele’s directed ‘Half of a Yellow Sun,’ starring Thandie Newton, ChiwetelEjiofor and Anika Noni Rose, while the sweeping epic ‘Sarraounia,’ based on historical accounts of Niger’s Queen Sarraounia, is the Closing Night selection. The historical drama took first prize at the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in 1987.
For Gyang, it is another exciting recognition. “We are of course thrilled to be opening a major film festival like this.
“For us as a young Nigerian production company, it is a huge step towards making our presence felt in the huge international arena of filmmaking. That sort of break happened to some Latino filmmakers in the 90s and I think right now it is the turn of Africa’s young filmmakers to take the lead and I am happy that we are part of the party.”
According to the release, the first leg of the festival includes 11 features and eight short films from various African nations and the Diaspora. The NYAFF continues throughout May at the Cinema at the Maysles Documentary Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcinématek.
Describing the trend of African film, AFF Executive Director and NYAFF Founder MahenBonetti was quoted as saying: “While American cinema started from popular films and progressed to art house, film in Africa went in reverse, garnering international interest through the art house genre before moving to popular cinema. Consequently, most of the films about Africa during its ‘art house’ phase cornered African cinema into a genre in itself, one that was perhaps not easily accessible.”
Bonetti added that: “Today, the golden era of technology not only allows the African public to see films made about their own realities but also exhorts each generation of filmmakers to raise the bar with the stories they tell about the continent and its diaspora, resulting in a veritable digital revolution.”
A crop of films take up this year’s theme of revolution and liberation. With the documentary,  ‘Mugabe: Villain or Hero?’, director Roy Agyemang, gets unprecedented access to the Zimbabwean leader and his entourage and lays bare the fight between African leaders and the West for African minerals and land.
Ibrahim El Batout’s narrative feature, ‘Winter of Discontent,’ takes viewers inside the Tahrir Square protests that were so central to the Arab Spring. And NtareGumaMbahoMwine’s timely experimental short ‘Kuhani’ features a conflicted priest, just as Uganda’s Anti-Homosexual Act is grabbing headlines.
Works on women’s rights and issues will also be featured. They include documentary, ‘Bastards,’ by Deborah Perkin of a single mother, beaten and raped at 14 and discarded as she fights in Moroccan court to legitimise her sham marriage, thus ensuring a future for the daughter born out of her nightmare. Cameronian director Victor Viyouh’s drama ‘Ninah’s Dowry,’ where the title character flees an abusive marriage only to be pursued by her husband to retrieve either his property (her) or the dowry he paid. Eka Christa Assam’s ‘Beleh’, turns gender roles on their head as a bullying husband gets a taste of his own medicine. There will also be narrative films, ‘Of Good Report,’ by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka and ‘Grigris’ by Mahamat-SalehHaroun, are allegorical to the societal shifts and legacy of post-independent Africa.
The event asides featuring other comedies will also feature a photography exhibition, ‘Congolese Dreams,’ of works by Congolese and American photographers, including BaudouinMouanda. It will be paired with AdamaDelphineFawundu’s stunning portraits capturing the residents of Tivoli Towers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn—home to more than 350 families, who are mostly of African descent—as well as portraits of young musician-activists from Nigeria and the U.S.
As is the tradition, the NYAFF closes over Memorial Day Weekend May 23-26 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music BAMcinématek as part of the dance and music festival DanceAfrica.