The Africa USA International Film Festival is an annual film festival that takes place in Los Angeles. The 2024 edition of the festival awarded films by Amelie Mbaye, Gary Telly JEANNOT, Denis Cougnaud, Apolline TRAORE, Kola Tubosun, and Dominique Philippe. [1] [2] [3]
The organisation's goals are "to provide a venue to showcase films from across the African and North American continents, in the hope of promoting mutual respect and understanding through cultural exchange." [4] Every year, it awards prizes in the following categories:
Major films and documentaries that have been screened at the festival include "The Green Legacy" (2024) [5] , "Think Outside the Box" (2024) [6] and "Zipped" (2024) [7] , as well as "Lai-je bien Coupée" directed by Amelie Mbaye, "Dawn", produced by Gary Telly JEANNOT, "Frontieres (Borders)" directed by Denis Cougnaud and Apolline TRAORE, "Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory", directed by Kola Tubosun, and "Safari in Conakry", directed by Dominique Philippe. [8]
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "wide cultural perspective and... poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence", the first sub-Saharan African to win the Prize in literature.
Death and the King's Horseman is a play by Wole Soyinka based on a real incident that took place in Nigeria during the colonial era: the horseman of a Yoruba King was prevented from committing ritual suicide by the colonial authorities. In addition to the intervention of the colonial authorities, Soyinka calls the horseman's own conviction toward suicide into question, posing a problem that throws off the community's balance.
Rokia Traoré is a Malian-born singer, songwriter and guitarist.
The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university located in Ibadan, Nigeria. Founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, it was initially affiliated with the University of London. In 1962, it became an independent institution, making it the oldest degree-awarding university in Nigeria. The University of Ibadan has significantly contributed to Nigeria's political, industrial, economic, and cultural development through its extensive network of graduates.
The Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) is an annual film festival that takes place in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. It was founded in 1979 by Teddy Sarkin and Ros Sarkin. Presented by Centre for Creative Arts at the University of Kwazulu-Natal, it is the oldest and largest film festival in Africa and presents over 200 screenings celebrating the best in South African, African and international cinema. Most of the screenings are either African or South African premieres. The festival also offers filmmaker workshops, industry seminars, discussion forums, and outreach activities that include screenings in township areas where cinemas are non-existent, and much more, including Talent Campus Durban and a Durban FilmMart co-production market.
Awam Amkpa is a professor of drama, film and social and cultural analysis at New York University in New York and Abu Dhabi. Actor, playwright, director of stage plays, films and curator of visual arts, Awam Amkpa is a Nigerian-American.
Manthia Diawara is a Malian writer, filmmaker, cultural theorist, scholar, and art historian. He holds the title of University Professor at New York University (NYU), where he is Director of the Institute of Afro-American Affairs.
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian linguist, writer, translator, scholar, cultural activist and film-maker. His work and influence span the fields of education, language technology, literature, journalism, and linguistics. He is the recipient of the 2016 Premio Ostana "Special Prize" for Writings in the Mother Tongue for his work in language advocacy. He writes in Yoruba and English, and is currently the Africa editor of the Best Literary Translations anthology, published by Deep Vellum.
The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian visual artist, writer, and photographer known for his expansive works that engage with multinational cultural heritage and postcolonial socioeconomics of contemporary black lives. In 2017, he was selected to represent Nigeria at the Venice Biennale, the first time Nigeria would be represented in the event. His work has been described as representing "a symbol of resistance" to colonialism.
The Yoruba Names Project is a documentation project set up to ensure the transfer of language and cultural resources of Yoruba language into a publicly accessible online format. It was launched on February 19, 2016.
Apolline Traoré is a Burkinabé director, screenwriter, and producer. She is known for films that include Sous la clarté de la lune,Borders, Desrances, and Sira, winner of FESPACO's Étalon d'argent de Yennenga in 2023 and Burkina Faso's entry in the Best International Feature Film category for the 96th Academy Awards.
Desrances is a 2019 Burkinabé drama thriller film directed by Apolline Traoré and produced by Denis Cougnaud. It stars Jimmy Jean-Louis and Jemima Naomi Nemlin with Evelyne Ily and Mike Danon in supporting roles. The film was shot at Haiti.
Borders is a 2017 drama film co-produced between Burkina Faso and France, directed and written by Apolline Traoré and starring Amelie Mbaye, Naky Sy Savané, Adizelou Sidi, and Unwana Udobeong in the lead roles.
Elesin Oba, The King's Horseman is a 2022 Yoruba-language Nigerian historical drama film directed by Biyi Bandele and distributed by Netflix, based on Wole Soyinka'sDeath and the King's Horseman, a stage play he wrote while in Cambridge, where he was a fellow student at Churchill College during his political exile from Nigeria, and it is based on a real incident that took place in Yorubaland during British Colonial rule. The film stars Odunlade Adekola as the titular character, with Shaffy Bello, Brymo, Deyemi Okanlawon, Omowunmi Dada, Jide Kosoko, Langley Kirkwood, Joke Silva amongst others in supporting roles.
Sira is a 2023 drama film written and directed by Apolline Traoré and starring Nafissatou Cissé, Mike Danon, Lazare Minoungou, Nathalie Vairac and Ruth Werner. The film depicts the story of young nomad named Sira, who after a brutal attack refuses to surrender to her fate without a fight and instead takes a stand against Islamist terror. It is a co-production between Burkina Faso, Senegal, France and Germany.
The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka is a 1972 non-fiction book by Wole Soyinka that explores Soyinka's experiences in prison during the Nigerian Civil War. In 1984, a Nigerian court banned the book. In 2011, The Guardian included The Man Died on their list so of the 100 greatest non-fiction books.
The Lagos International Poetry Festival, also often called LIPFest, is an annual festival of poetry which takes place in Lagos, Nigeria. Referred to as "an annual haven for Nigerian and international creatives, especially poets,” LIPFest was founded by Efe Paul Azino, a Nigerian spoken word artist and poet, to bring together an international array of poets, writers, artists, and public intellectuals to Lagos for a week of readings and performances, panel discussions, workshops, community outreaches, and a celebration of the art of poetry in general.
Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory is a documentary film written, produced, and directed by Kola Tubosun, and shot by Tunde Kelani, about the eponymous location at the University of Ibadan where Nigerian writer/playwright and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka lived and worked between 1967 and 1972. It was from there that Soyinka was arrested in 1967 after visiting the breakaway Biafra that was engaged in a civil war with Nigeria, and it was there to which he returned in 1969 after his release, before leaving for a voluntary exile a few years later. The film premiered in Nigeria in July 2024 as part of activities to mark Soyinka's 90th birthday, and has continued to screen in venues in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere.