THE WALTER READE THEATER

  The New York African Film Festival

April 5 to 10, 2003

This program was organized by Richard Peña and The African Film Festival, Inc. (Mahen Bonetti, Prerana Reddy, Alonzo Speight, Ekwa Msangi, Belynda Hardin). Thanks are due to Kaine Agary, Tracy Binta Austin, Joan Baffour, Francis Baffour, Luca Bonetti, Francoise Bouffault, Rumbi Bwerinofa, Michael Clarke, Kevin Duggan, Joy Elliott, Tunde Giwa, Brigitte Houngbedji, Glenda Johnson, Kojo Associates, Ira Moseley, Maureen Slattery, Cat Stephens, Don Webster and Cheryl Wilson.

The programs of AFF are made possible by the generous support of Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, JPMorgan Chase, New York State Council on the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, American Express, UNDP, UNESCO, Piper Heidsieck, 57 Main Street Wine Company, Estudio Inc., The New York Times, Time Warner Cable and Mayflower Hotel. Ethiopian Airlines is the official airlines of AFF.

This year, the African Film Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary by presenting an extraordinary collection of films from the African continent. The selected films have set trends for artistic and technical ingenuity and excellence, and will continue to inspire future generations of filmmakers. The astonishing variety of themes and styles is indicative of the diversity of Africa, which is blessed with a richness of culture and history, despite the ravages of war and great economic hardship.

AFF is proud to present a mid-career retrospective of Abderrahmane Sissako, a truly international filmmaker who has always put Africa at the center of his world. Sissako's oeuvre is one of the most honest in its narrative position and delicate in its political enunciation; his contribution to world cinema deserves recognition not only because he is one of Africa's most accomplished artists, but also because his life's work frames the complex identity of filmmaker as global citizen.

AFF will also be highlighting the exciting work coming from South African directors dealing with crucial issues facing the region, from post-apartheid realities to controversial land reforms. Lastly, by popular demand, we continue the annual tradition of featuring an "African Classic," in addition to the best new work from the continent. Our "African Classic" presentation this year will be Heritage Africa, Kwaw Ansah's devastating look at the elite during colonial times in Ghana. AFF continues to lead the mission in bringing the distinctive experience of African cinema to the hearts and imagination of the world.

WAITING FOR HAPPINESS
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania, 2002; 95m. Hassania with English subtitles
As part of this year's AFF, we're pleased to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Sissako's most recent film, called "a gem" by The New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell when he reviewed it at the 2002 New York Film Festival. Abderrahmane Sissako (LIFE ON EARTH, NYFF '98) returns with this beautifully observed mosaic of life in a West African seaside village. The story's touchstone is Abdallah, a young man away from his homeland for so long that he's forgotten the local dialect. As he prepares to emigrate to Europe he encounters several villagers, each of whom provides a counterpoint to his story. Devising their own contemporary realities, Sissako's characters transcend the conventional oppositions of tradition vs. modernity, local vs. foreign, to produce new kinds of synthesis. Witness the scene in which a Chinese man sings karaoke in a Mauritanian bar - as powerful an image of globalization as you're likely to find in cinema today.
Sat April 5: *1:30 & *9; Sun April 6: *8:30 Mon April 7: 1:30 & *6; Tue April 8: 1:30 & 8:30 Wed April 9: 1:30 & 8:30; Thurs April 10: 2:45 & 9:30

LIFE ON EARTH
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania, 1998; 61m. Bambara and French with English subtitles
On the eve of the year 2000, Sissako returns to his father's village, Sokolo, a few houses in the heart of the Mali savannah. The passage to the new century comes about without major changes in these places where time seems to have stood still. Abderrahmane Sissako's LIFE ON EARTH is a sublime contemplation on the unhealed relationship between black Africa and the white world, and shares with us the daily life of a remote village seemingly untouched by time. Only the radio is there to remind us that the outside world is taking the millennium leap very, very seriously.
Preceded by
OCTOBER
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania, 1991; 37m. Russian with English subtitles
The world of the Africans in Moscow is still a world off limits. Idrissa leaves the university zone for a few hours to spend an instant of tenderness abroad - to bid adieu to his Moscovite girlfriend Ira, as both struggle to end their impossible affair. With Ira, Idrissa lives the daily anguish of the noise of neighbors spying on them, and the fear of the inquisitions of the volunteers in charge of the district. Ira battles silently with the knowledge that their love is fated to end and also with the burden of a pregnancy that she does not think she will bring to term. This doomed relationship between a black man and a white woman in contemporary Russia acts as a metaphor for the sense of exclusion and misunderstanding at the heart of the outsider experience.
Sat April 5: *4; Mon April 7:*3:30

MY LAND, MY LIFE
Rehad Desai, South Africa, 2002; 52m
MY LAND, MY LIFE is told the through the eyes of the filmmaker, who once lived in Zimbabwe and held Mugabe in esteem and now returns to make sense of the conflict that takes him into a strife-torn farming area. Through the central characters - a farmer, a farmhand and a war veteran - we enter into the social texture of present-day rural and urban Zimbabwe and its unfolding drama. The conflicts between farm worker and settler are explored, as are the conflicts between farmer and settler and farmer and farm worker. The focus of MY LAND, MY LIFE is about the complexities of how a range of ordinary Zimbabweans understand the fast-changing political landscape in Zimbabwe. It is a nuanced and candid film that is frank in its pro-equality stance and a critique of those who claim to represent the interests of the peasants and workers from both sides.
Preceded by
ZIMBABWE 2002
Farai Sevenzo, Zimbabwe, 2002; 30m. English and Shona with English subtitles Farai Sevenzo, journalist and filmmaker, returned to Zimbabwe for the first time in 15 years during the 2002 elections to see how the voting process affected and influenced his family and friends. As the events continue to unravel in the world headlines, there is a certainty that there are many truths to the Zimbabwean story. There is the truth of the global condemnation of political oppression, the truth of journalists seeking a story and the truth of the complexities of Zimbabwean history, and at the forefront of the situation are Zimbabweans themselves.
Sat April 5: *6:30; Wed April 9: 3:45
Thurs April 10: *7:30

ROSTOV LUANDA
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania, 1997; 60m. Arabic, Russian, Portuguese and French with English subtitles
In 1980, director Sissako left his native Mauritania for Rostov-on-the-Don to learn Russian and study the art of filmmaking. While there, he became friends with Bari-Banga, an Angolan freedom fighter. Almost two decades later, Sissako begins another life-altering journey - this one to Luanda - in search of his old friend and the promise of African liberation. This is turbulent African history written in actual flesh and blood, as Sissako captures the painful stories of the regulars at the Biker Cafe, located in the heart of Luanda. Although Sissako goes to Angola seeking his old friend and his old hopes, he makes new friends and finds an Africa at ground zero, bereft of ideologies and illusions, much of its past destroyed by the catastrophes of colonialism and civil war, but possessed of an irrepressibly resilient spirit.
Preceded by
SABRIYA
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania, 1997; 26m. Arabic with English subtitles
This film explores the impact of the modern world on the traditional male society of the Maghreb. It is a film about men who prefer to live life as an abstract game and the free-spirited woman who changes all that. Said and Youssef are two brothers who are crazy about chess and have fulfilled a lifetime dream by opening a "chess bar" in the middle of the desert. The men sit around drinking palm wine, playing board games and composing love poetry to imaginary women. All this changes when, on a train, Youssef meets Sarah, a sexually liberated, uninhibited métisse, who easily lures Youssef into an affair. Soon he is dreaming not about chess but about opening a coffee bar in Genoa. The friendship is destroyed, the bar sold; Youssef, dressed in Western clothes, waits to leave with Sarah; will she show up? Said boards a train and sits down next to a Westernized woman bearing a resemblance to Sarah....
Preceded by
LE JEU
Abderrahmane Sissako, Mali / Mauritania,1988; 23m. Hassania with English subtitles
Somewhere in the desert, a war is being waged. Ahmed's father must return to the front, after a day spent with his wife and son. As he leaves, a group of children play in the dunes with a haunting and innocent cruelty. In their familiar surroundings, they play games that mirror the world in which they live. Through their playful activities, they will discover the harshness of their destinies.
Sun April 6: *1; Mon April 7: *8:15

HERITAGE AFRICA
Kwaw Ansah, Ghana, 1989; 110m
A riveting exploration of the impact of colonialism in the Gold Coast, as seen through its central character, a man named Kwesi Atta Bosomefi, who prefers to be called Quincy Arthur Bosomfield. The perfect product of colonial education, Bosomfield embraces English culture in all forms, rising within the colonial administration to become an African district commissioner (a rarity) and member of the black educated "elite." In the process, he abandons his African heritage and all that has real meaning to him. Only after a series of humiliating encounters, peppered with vivid recollections of his past and a frightening and revealing dream, does he reclaim his true identity and heritage.
Sun April 6: 3:30; Tue April 8: 3:30

WA'N WINA
Dumisani Phakathi, South Africa, 2001; 52m. English, Sotho and Zulu with English subtitles
How are young people in South Africa getting by in the age of AIDS? Dumisani Phakathi returns to his old neighborhood in Phiri, Soweto. He walks around with his camera, talking to people on the street and in their homes and yards. Although some are struggling with poverty and unemployment, the main topic of conversation is sex and love. Zonke and his friends lift weights in the backyard while his HIV-positive brother holds AIDS Consortium Workshop meetings out front. Rumia, a teenage mother, has started drinking to relieve the stress of caring for a baby while attending school. A group of men debate what it means to be a man: to have gone to prison and suffered physical hardship, or to provide for your family. This is a rock-and-roll journey that reveals the gaps between the world of everyday and the anti-AIDS campaigns that often talk past the very people they are supposed to address. It is the recognition of people's will to survive in the age of AIDS.
Preceded by
AN OLD WIFE'S TALE
Dumisani Phakathi, South Africa, 1999; 26m
In the new, democratic South Africa, cultural norms come under the spotlight. Former injustices have been corrected through legislation and all can now enjoy equal rights. In this comedy, Hendrik, an Afrikaner farmer, decides to exercise his constitutional rights and enter into a polygamous marriage, like his farmhand Lucas. A Xhosa man, Lucas has long lived happily with his three wives. Hendrik seeks his advice on how to manage such a situation and soon his dreams become reality when a recently widowed nubile friend visits the farm. Preceded by
CHRISTMAS WITH GRANNY
Dumisani Phakathi, South Africa, 2000; 26m
English and Xhosa with English subtitles
A young boy, Madlozi, is taken on a journey to be baptized into his grandmother's faith. The poignant train trip is a metaphoric journey hailing the past and looking into the future. His grandmother is adamant that Madlozi will adopt the culture of his forefathers; Madlozi stubbornly resists. The journey, seen through the young boy's eyes, conjures up scenes from a segregated South Africa and juxtaposes them with aspirations for the future.
Sun April 6: *5:45; Wed April 9: *6
Thurs April 10: *4:45

ABOUNA
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Chad, 2002; 84m.
Chadian with English subtitles
In a hot, dusty town near the border of Chad and Cameroon, a father abandons his family, changing the lives of his two young sons forever. When he fails to appear for their amateur soccer match, they search for him high and low. One day at the local cinema, the boys believe they see him on screen, and steal a reel of the film as proof. Beside herself, their mother sends them off to a strict boarding school where things become increasingly intolerable. Premiered at this year's New Directors/New Films festival, director Mahamat Saleh Haroun (Bye Bye Africa) has brought us an accomplished and ultimately optimistic work, with outstanding charismatic performances by the young actors.
Tue April 8: *6:15; Thurs April 10: 1