CinemAfrica Retrospective Edition at Zita in Stockholm 17–20 March – the director and film scholar Manthia Diawara visits Sweden as Guest Artistic Director during a special edition of the festival
Prior to its regular festival this fall, CinemAfrica arranges a special Retrospective Edition at Zita in Stockholm. During this curated and shorter edition of the festival, both old and new films centered around the rediscovery and reinterpretation of film history will be screened. The edition has been programmed by Manthia Diawara and Christian Rossipal, together with the CinemAfrica Program Group.
Since its inception in 1998, CinemAfrica has been the most important Nordic festival to screen films from the African continent and diaspora. The regular festival takes place this fall, 10–16 October, in conjunction and collaboration with the Afro-Swedish History Week. But already 17–20 March there will be a special retrospective edition, during which, for the first time, a filmmaker is invited to curate the program. Together with Mali-born director and film scholar Manthia Diawara, CinemAfrica Retrospective Edition will focus on films that rediscover or “remix” history. Classics from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s are screened side-by-side with films from the new millennium.Among the older films, you will find highlights from previous CinemAfrica festivals while the new films are concerned with film history by radically reimagining it. The Senegalese drama “Touki Bouki” (1973) by Djibril Diop Mambety, for example, is screened in addition to ”A Thousand Suns” (2013) in which the director’s niece Mati Diop follows one of the actors from the uncle’s cult classic. Apart from other classics like “Black Girl” (1966), recently rediscovered works are screened – like the visually striking films by Edward Owens, a queer African-American experimental filmmaker who was active during the ‘60s but who has been rediscovered during the last couple of years.
Through its programming, CinemAfrica highlights otherwise invisible pioneers – like Madeline Anderson, the first African-American woman to direct a documentary in the US; and Madubuko Diakité, whose Swedish-produced “For Personal Reasons” (1973) is screened for the first time in a theater since the ‘70s. During the March edition, CinemAfrica will also hold the Swedish premiere of acclaimed artist Salad Hilowle’s new short film “Sylwan,” which imagines the life of George Sylvan – the first Black actor in Swedish cinema.
