African Documentary Film Festival Opens July 21

Miriam Makeba 
Sub-Saharan Africa channel ED on DStv channel 190 and GOtv channel 65 is making July, a month of African Documentary Films.

The TV, in collaboration with the Durban International Film Festival is scheduled to broadcast some of the award-winning documentary films from July 21-27.

This unique film event would see a diverse and exciting range of films screened across 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa to coincide with the Durban International Film Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from July 17-27.

The event would connect the largest film festival in Africa through a ‘film festival at home’ featuring documentary films from 13 countries in Africa – D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa, among others.

‘So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences. This to herald a new era of distribution for the continent’, says Executive Producer, Don Edkins.

Films by African filmmakers Idrissa Guiro, Sani Elhadj, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams, amongst others, would be seen for the first time.

Five of the films screening at the Durban Film Festival (DIFF) would also be part of the programme, including the award-winning ‘Miners Shot Down’, ‘Concerning Violence’, ‘I Afrikaner’, ‘The Irresistible Rise of Moise Katumbi’ and ‘Soft Vengeance’.

These African documentaries tell a range of stories; from films about great African artistes, such as singer and activist Miriam Makeba (Mama Africa) and the Malian photographer Malik Sibidé (Dolce Vita Africana), to political / historical films on leaders Patrice Lumumba and Liberian President Sirleaf Johnson, as well as films about revolutionaries, farmers, gangsters, and illegal immigrants.