South Africa a leading player with "Mama Africa" in Cordoba’s 9th African Film Festival

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Created on Saturday, 13 October 2012 15:17

South Africa’s representation is outstanding in one of the most important European events for African cinema: 9th Cordoba African Film Festival. With a key presence in the festival’s professional space, three South African movies will also compete for prizes endowed with €15,000. Mama Africa, the festival’s opening film, will celebrate the figure of Miriam Makeba.

Cordoba - Spain, October
The Cordoba African Film Festival (also known as FCAT Cordoba) is about to open its ninth edition in Southern Spain with a vast programme of African films and activities to promote African cinema in Europe. Like in previous years, South Africa is one of the most visible countries in this unique showcase, with a strong participation of established professionals in Africa Produce – the 4th Co-Production Forum of this festival.

As part of a weeklong program of activities for international film industry professionals, the South African flag will be raised on Thursday 18th October in a one-off session called “South Africa, gateway to African film co-production”. Organized with the support and participation of NFVF (South African National Film and Video Foundation), this initiative will offer a unique presentation on the South African film sector and its role in intra continental co-productions. The Spanish participants will draw analogies about the Spanish film sector and the co-productions markets in which Spain traditionally participates. Among other international participants, this activity will count with the presence of distinguished South African film producer Steven Markovitz, who will also be one of the specialists in charge of selecting the best African feature-length film project in the €25,000 grant scheme offered by Italian foundation lettera27 for this year’s FCAT Africa Produce Co-Production Forum. This opportunity of gathering South African film specialists with Spanish professionals will also aim at starting the process for a co-production agreement between South Africa and Spain.

In this year’s FCAT, South Africa will not only be represented in the professional space, but it will also be highly visible in the event’s general film programme. Starting from the internationally acclaimed documentary Mama Africa (by Mika Kaurismäki), with which the figure of great South African artist and activist Miriam Makeba will be celebrated in the festival’s opening ceremony, three different South African film productions will participate in the three competitive sections: feature-length fiction movie Skoonheid by Cape Town filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, documentary Gangster Project and short film Thato, both by producer and director Teboho Edkins. These movies will compete for a total of eleven honorary and monetary awards, six of which will offer different prizes endowed with €15,000.

South Africa is the only African country that has a selected film in each of the festival’s competitive categories, a fact that demonstrates the strength, quality and prolificacy of the South African filmmaking sector. According to Mane Cisneros, FCAT Director, “South Africa is a major producer of movies in Africa and in the world. Like in previous editions, we are honoured to present this year’s best South African films in Spain and to keep representing a platform for new intercontinental co-production projects”.

In the non-competitive sections, other historical and acclaimed South African movies will be screened, some for the first time in Cordoba, with the aim of complementing the diverse and artistically rich representations of Africa that the FCAT offers in Spain through African cinema. Movies such Come back, Africa by L. Rogosin, Triomf by M. Raeburn or the documentary Sea Point Days, by F. Verster, will be exhibited in a unique film retrospective called “Cinema and Metropolis: the African city through cinema”.

The Cordoba African Film Festival celebrates its 9th edition, ending on the 20th of October. After 8 editions held in Tarifa – the Southern-most town of Spain on the Strait of Gibraltar, the Festival moves this year to Cordoba, one of Andalusia’s biggest cities and a historical towns, symbol of interculturality and people’s cohabitation for centuries. The 9th Cordoba African Film Festival will offer eight days dedicated to the best cinema coming from 28 African and Middle Eastern countries. 94 films will be screened during the Festival, together with activities for professionals, visual art exhibitions, seminars and encounters between African and European film professionals and the audience, as well as actions designed to foster citizen participation, with a special focus on children and university students. In recent years, the Cordoba African Film Festival - FCAT has established itself as a European reference for African cinemas. Among others sponsors, this year’s edition is supported by Cordoba City Council, the Andalusia regional Government and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).