Views of Africa, the unmissable event for African cinema in North America
The poster for the Vues d'Afrique Festival, an unmissable event for African cinema in North America, from April 9 to 18, 2021, online.
© Views of Africa
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
4 min
The 37th “Vues d'Afrique” International Film Festival opened on Friday April 9, with an online ceremony, live from Montreal, Quebec, but also from the Ivory Coast, the DRC and Senegal, for “
an audience around the world
”.
This second digital edition offers until April 18 a hundred films from more than 30 countries in Africa and the Caribbean.
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For 37 years, Vues d'Afrique, the unmissable event for African cinema in North America, has invited its audiences to discover another image of Africa.
This Friday, April 9, 2021, during the online opening ceremony, Gérard Le Chêne, international CEO of Vues d'Afrique, said that the festival "
has eaten the lion
" to ensure this 37th edition despite the pandemic.
A prize in the service of equality
The Congolese and Pan-African journalist and activist Maud-Salomé Ekila is this year the godmother of the festival where, for the first time, a prize will be awarded in the service of equality between women and men.
With its programming, Vues d'Afrique aims to make us “
meet remarkable women
”, “
break taboos
”, alert “
on conjugal violence
” and offer the opportunity of “
a crucial awareness
”.
Last year, surprised by the Covid-19 pandemic, the organizers courageously turned the cultural break caused by the coronavirus into a popular success with a digital festival much appreciated by the public.
"Land of the Braves", the first film from Namibia
This year, among the nuggets to find during the ten days (online, but with a geolocated restriction), we find
Terre des braves
, the first film from Namibia telling the adventures of a policewoman in pursuit of a killer. .
This thriller directed by Tim Huebschle is one of eleven feature films in competition also coming from Algeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Mozambique ...
Matares
, by Rachid Benhadj, allows us to meet an Ivorian girl who lives with her mother in Algeria, in Tipasa.
Their project?
Join the father in Italy.
For this, she turns into a flower seller, but thus competes with Saïd, a little Algerian boy.
Very quickly, the conflict between children degenerated into a religious quarrel.
Laurent Vedrine addresses the sensitive issue of restitution.
The statue of the god Gou, a sculpture long claimed by Benin, is at the center of its documentary
Dieu Gou, the return of a statue
.
Thus, it puts to the test the commitment made by French President Emmanuel Macron, in Ouagadougou, in November 2017, to return looted works of art to African countries.
A fight for emancipation and against a mysterious epidemic
The great green wall
evokes a utopian project in Africa, to plant a wall of trees over 8,000 kilometers to improve both the climatic and social problems of millions of Africans concerned by this ambitious project.
In this documentary, it is the singer Inna Modja (
French Cancan - Monsieur Sainte Nitouche
) who gives voice to this story awakening hope.
Mofiala
, a Togolese animated film directed by Boris Kpadenou, tells the story of a fight for emancipation, but also the fight against a mysterious epidemic.
It is precisely Mofiala, once sent by her mother, against her father's advice, to study in the city to study the bacteriology that will be at the front to fight this disease of unknown origin.
Views of Africa and Fespaco
Since its creation, the Vues d'Afrique Festival has always worked in very close collaboration with Fespaco in Burkina Faso, the largest pan-African film festival in the world.
Following the
indefinite
postponement
of the voice of African cinema, Vues d'Afrique has been given the role of a locomotive for African cinema this year.
►
Views of Africa, from April 9 to 18, 2021 online
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