A great year of African cinema for Namibian audiences
The intense movie, A Good Report, will be screened in Windhoek by AfricAvenir during 2014.
During the first half of 2014 AfricAvenir will be screening six movies from countries like Kenya, Tunisia, Rwanda, Senegal and Angola. They will also be screening “Of Good Hope” by Jahmil Qubeka which was controversially banned then unbanned by the South African Film and Publication Board last year.
They will also re-screen some of the films they have screened in the past, such as “Baara” (1979), by Souleymane Cisse from Mali and “Africa Shafted” (2011) by Ingrid Martens of South Africa but the film series will mostly consist of Namibian premieres. The second half of 2014 will bring feature films such as “Behind Closed Doors” (2013), by Mohammed Ahed Bensouda from Morocco, dealing with the theme of sexual harassment. This will be followed by the feel good film, “Something for Heart and Soul”, by Roberta Durrant of South Africa. There will also be screening of documentaries. Director of AfricAvenir, Hans-Christian Mahnke said that he thinks the programme as social and political commentary is clear and that the tragedies, the suffering, the conflicts of the numerous men and women who people these films reflect the larger social, intellectual and political changes in one significant part of the modern world, Africa. He emphasised that the films show the struggle of the younger generation of men and women to attain their domestic freedom and to shape their own lives. It mirrors or parallels the continent’s struggle to achieve political and economic independence and for its people to free themselves from shackles of almost medieval conventions and adopt a world outlook belonging to the modern world. AfricAvenir will furthermore start an African film series for children on Saturday mornings once a month, as well as a bi-monthly Namibian film series in Basel, Switzerland, with the Basler Afrika Bibliopgraphien.
