African Film Festival 2012

1/26/12 to 2/29/12

This year's edition of our annual African Film Festival spans the globe to feature new voices from Africa and the African diaspora, spotlighting pool attendants in Chad, Beethoven lovers in Kinshasa, Tuareg immigrants in Italy, a Spanish filmmaker in Morocco, and even two African American hipsters in San Francisco.

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  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • You All Are Captains

    • Wednesday, February 29 7 pm

    Oliver Laxe (Spain/Morocco, 2010). This tender new film blurs fiction and documentary as it chronicles a young Spanish director's attempt to make a film with a group of Moroccan children. “Imagine François Truffaut's Small Change and Day for Night, but with the intimacy of Abbas Kiarostami's films about children.” (Richard Brody, New Yorker). (78 mins)

  • Kongo: 50 Years of Independence of Congo

    • Wednesday, February 15 7 pm

    Samuel Tilman, Daniel Cattier, Jean-François Bastin and Isabelle Christiaens (Belgium, 2010). Forget Ken Burns or the History Channel: this three-episode series on the Congo is unlike any documentary series you've seen before. Vivid sepia-toned animation and first-person narrative voice-overs blend with rarely seen, startling archival footage to reveal a country whose struggles embody African history. (156 mins)

  • Viva Riva!

    • Sunday, February 12 6:30 pm

    Djo Tunda Wa Munga (France/Belgium/Congo, 2010). A local hustler gets in over his head when he tackles an Angolan gang-and seduces a crime lord's gal-in this kinetic gangster film from the Congo. A Tony Scott/Denzel Washington Hollywood hit filtered through Congolese grit, and “a blast from start to finish” (Variety). (96 mins)

  • Kinshasa Symphony

    • Sunday, February 5 2:00 pm

    Claus Wischmann, Martin Baer (Democratic Republic of Congo/Germany, 2010). Beethoven in the ruins: a behind-the-scenes look at the Orchestra Kinshasa as they attempt to keep classical music-and themselves-alive in a chaotic Congo. “A fully charged ode to the power of music” (Variety). (95 mins)

  • One Way, A Tuareg Journey

    • Wednesday, February 1 7 pm

    Fabio Caramaschi (Italy/Niger, 2010). A young Tuareg child interviews his own family as well as other residents of his new Italian town in this clever documentary about family upheaval, immigration, and hope. Preceded by Lezare, by Ethiopian filmmaker Zelalem Woldemariam Ezare. (66 mins)

  • A Screaming Man

    • Sunday, January 29 4:30 pm

    Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (France/Belgium/Chad, 2010). A graying pool attendant weighs his employment future-and his relationship with his son-amidst a rising civil war in “this modest film, if only in scale and apparent budget, about some of the greatest questions in life” (New York Times). From the director of Abouna and Daratt. (91 mins)

  • Medicine for Melancholy

    • Thursday, January 26 7 pm

    Barry Jenkins (U.S., 2007). Barry Jenkins in person. A one-night stand evolves into something deeper and politically complex for a young African American couple when they decide to spend the next day together. With The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac. “The rare film as thoughtful as it is sensual” (Michael Fox). With Jenkins's short My Josephine. (98 mins)