This year-long film festival will present bi-weekly screenings of acclaimed feature films and documentaries, from a broad range of African countries and filmmakers. Films in the festival will be centered around five general topic areas: History and Politics; Gender and Sexuality; Health and Environment; Human Rights; and Youth. Each film will be presented by Rutgers specialists or by visiting scholars, who will contextualize the film before the screening and lead a discussion session afterward. Screenings will be held every other Tuesday beginning at 7 P.M. in the Graduate Student Lounge on College Avenue Campus. All of the festival films are subtitled in English.

History and Politics September 9: SILENCES OF THE PALACE / Samt el qusur (Tunisia; 1994) Moufida Tlatli [127 mins] Arabic and French. Grand Prize, Carthage Film Festival; Grand Prize, Istanbul Film Festival; International Critics' Award, Toronto Film Festival; Golden Camera-Special Mention, Cannes Film Festival; Sutherland Trophy, British Film Institute

Khedija's daughter Alia, a gifted singer, grows up in the palace of the Tunisian Beys where her mother has served her entire life in a state of de-facto slavery. As the Tunisian independence movement builds, Alia must also struggle to create an independent life for herself.

Presented by RICHARD SERRANO, French / African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures; Plus opening reception with buffet dinner

September 23: TOUKI BOUKI / The Hyena's Journey (Senegal; 1973) Djibril Diop Mambéty [86 mins] Wolof and French. Special Jury Award, Moscow Film Festival

Mory, a cowherd who rides a motorcycle with cowhorns lashed to the handlebars, and his girlfrend, university student Anta, travel through Senegal seeking to raise some quick money to leave the country. The film engages with the postcolonial angst of Senegalese youth and is shot in a vibrantly experimental style.

Presented by BOUBACAR BORIS DIOP, visiting scholar, French; Senegalese novelist, journalist and screenwriter

October 7: MORTU NEGA / Death Denied (Guinea-Bissau; 1988) Flora Gomes [93 mins] Portuguese/Criolo

This film depicts with remarkable realism and poignancy the final days of the independence struggle in Guinea-Bissau, following the impact of the war on Diminga and her husband Sako, as well as the disillusionment that they experience as they come to realize that the revolution has in fact just begun.

Presented by AKIN ADESOKAN, Comparative Literature, Indiana University

Gender and Sexuality

October 21: SISTERS IN LAW (Cameroon; 2005) Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi [104 mins] English, Pidgin English and Hausa Art Cinema Award, Cannes; Audience Award, Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival

In the little town of Kumba, Cameroon, there have been no convictions in spousal abuse cases for 17 years. But State Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba are determined to change that, as they help women and girls to fight cases of battering, despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent.

Presented by OUSSEINA ALIDOU, African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures

November 3: PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A MONDAY EVENING DAKAN / Destiny (Guinea; 1997) Mohamed Camara [87 mins] French and Mandikan Grand Jury Award - Foreign Narrative Feature, Los Angeles Outfest

The first gay-themed feature film from Sub-Saharan Africa, Dakan centers on Manka and Sori, two students in Conakry who "come out" to their parents but then must deal with each of their families' opposition to the relationship.

Presented by Dorothy Hodgson, Anthropology, and Director, Institute for Research on Women

November 18: DOUBLE FEATURE: LA NOIRE DE... / Black Girl (Senegal; 1965) Ousmane Sembène [65 mins] French Grand Prize, Carthage Film Festival; Jean Vigo Film Prize

Inspired by a news story, the film follows a young Senegalese woman who is hired as a maid by a white French couple and taken to the Riviera, where she is forced to work long hours in isolation in their apartment.

CINDERELLA OF THE CAPE FLATS (South Africa; 2004) Jane Kennedy [58 mins] English and Afrikaans This documentary centers on Cape Town's garment factory workers, who toil every day so that other women will look beautiful. But once a year they themselves don glamorous costumes and compete in the Annual Spring Queen Pageant. Presented by MAHRIANA ROFHEART, Comparative Literature, and OMOTAYO JOLAOSHO, Anthropology

Health and Environment

December 2 (IN OBSERVANCE OF WORLD AIDS DAY): WA 'N WINA / Sincerely Yours (South Africa; 2001) Dumisani Phakathi [52 mins] English, Sotho and Zulu

The filmmaker returns to his township with a hand-held camera to talk with young people--including some of his childhood friends--about how they live and love in the era of AIDS.

Presented by LUCIA SAKS, Screen Arts and Cultures, University of Michigan

January 27: ZAN BOKO (Burkina Faso; 1988) Gaston Kaboré [95 mins] More

Zan Boko is a term that refers to the place the placenta is buried after a baby's birth in the Mossi culture, marking his or her ties to the earth and to the community's ancestors. The film celebrates these ties, even as it dramatizes a traditional village's encroachment by urbanization, as subsistence farming is replaced by commodity production, and oral culture cedes to mass communication.

Presented by MAMADOU WATTARA, French

February 10: DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE (Austria/Belgium/Tanzania et al; 2004) Hubert Sauper [107 mins] English, Swahili and Russian

International Critics Award, Sydney Film Festival; Best Documentary, European Film Awards; Audience Award, Mexico City Contemporary Film Festival; Best First Work, César Awards, France; Audience Award, Entrevues Film Festival; Vienna Film Award, Viennale; Europa Cinemas Label Award, Venice Film Festival; European Jury Award, Angers European First Film Festival; Nominee, Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature

This documentary tracks the profound impact of the Nile perch fishing industry in Lake Victoria. The voracious fish have wiped out local species; while the prized fillets are flown out to European supermarkets, Tanzanians experiences famine. What do the planes that transport the fish to Europe bring in to the African continent?

Presented by RICK SCHROEDER, Geography

Human Rights

February 24: AT 7PM, PLEASE JOIN US FOR A TALK BY KENNETH HARROW (MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY):

“TRASH!: A NEW LOOK AT AFRICAN CINEMA”

FOLLOWED BY A SCREENING OF:

O HERÓI / The Hero (Angola; 2004) Zézé Gamboa [97 mins] Portuguese World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize, Sundance

The film follows a diverse group of Angolans--a disabled war veteran, a prostitute, an orphaned schoolboy and his teacher--as they seek to come to terms with the legacy of their nation's 40 years of civil war, and create new lives for themselves.

March 10: FORGIVENESS (South Africa; 2005) Ian Gabriel [118 mins] English and Afrikaans Human Rights and Youth Jury Awards, Locarno Film Festival; Best Cinematography, Durban Film Festival

Tertius Coetzee, a former policeman who tortured and murdered ANC activist Daniel Grootboom, has confessed and been granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but he does not feel his guilt has been assuaged. He travels to the home of his victim's family in a fishing village on the Western Cape to ask their forgiveness.

Presented by LESLIE WITZ, visiting scholar, History, University of the Western Cape

March 24: LA NUIT DE LA VERITÉ / The Night of Truth (Burkina Faso; 2004) Fanta Régina Nacro [100 mins] Dioula, More and French Grand Prize, Paris Film Festival; Grand Prize, Fribourg Film Festival; Best New Screenwriter, San Sebastián Film Festival

The film is set in a single night as two military groups in a fictional African country attempt to come to a reconciliation; the survivors of the genocidal conflict must deal with their grief, guilt, hatred and desire for vengeance, but they also wish to look ahead to living together peacefully.

Presented by SALMA MAOULIDI, visiting scholar, Institute for Research on Women; Tanzanian lawyer and activist

Youth

April 7: ÇA TWISTE À POPONGUINE (Senegal; 1993) Moussa Sene Absa [90 mins] French

In the weeks before Christmas, 1964, two groups of Senegalese teenagers square off: the Ins, who attend school, have adopted the names of French pop stars, while the Kings, who are fishermen, prefer to imitate African American R & B legends. Their rivalry is portrayed through the eyes of a young orphan boy who serves as a messenger for the teenagers.

Presented by BARBARA COOPER, History

April 21: HEREMAKONO / Waiting for Happiness (Mauritania, 2002) Abderrahmane Sissako [96 mins] Hassaniya and French Grand Prize and Best Sets Award, Panafrican Film Festival; International Critics' Award and Foreign Cineaste of the Year Award, Cannes; Grand Prize, Paris Biennal of Arab Cinema; Best Film, Buenos Aires Festival of Independent Cinema; Special Jury Award, Gijón Film Festival; Youth Jury Emile Cantillon Award, Namur Festival of French-Speaking Cinema

The Mauritanian border town of Nouhadhibou is the setting for an exquisitely-shot meditation on the place of nomadism and rootedness in contemporary Africa. The film foregrounds several young people working to build a future for themselves, by embracing local cultural traditions, fleeing to Europe, or seeking out a middle ground on the ever-shifting sands of the desert.

Presented by SUSAN MARTIN-MÁRQUEZ, Spanish and Portuguese

MANY THANKS to our generous sponsors: Center for African Studies; Program in Cinema Studies; International Programs; Graduate Student Association; Institute for Research on Women; Transliteratures Program; Department of Spanish and Portuguese; Department of French; Office of Undergraduate Education