LONDON: From October 21 to November 5, Edinburgh's Filmhouse Cinema will play host to Africa in Motion (AiM), the UK's largest African film festival, which arrives for its fifth edition this year. From an attendance of 1,300 people in 2006, AiM grew to 3,000 people in 2009. The program includes films from some of the 17 African countries celebrating 50 years of independence, alongside a range of festive themes filling the 16 days of the festival, including a focus on African music and dance, sport, ceremonies, environmental progress, food, fashion and beauty, Mandela, children and youth, and poetry. “The diverse range of films from every corner of the continent reflects the maturity of African cinema. From francophone West African cinema, to a range of documentaries and fiction films from North and Southern Africa, an feature films from the emerging East African film industries, the festival has something for everyone,” said festival director Lizelle Bisschoff. The opening film is Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's satire Sex, Okra and Salted Butter (Sexe, Gombo et Beurre Salé, 2008). Earlier this year Haroun's film was awarded the Jury Prize at Cannes for his latest film Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man). Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno will be present at the festival to introduce his films and lead a masterclass. Alfred Muchilwa, an animator from Kenya will also attend the festival and lead an animation workshop for children. Music and dance documentaries play an important role in the program as do francophone African movies, including the UK premiere of Congo-Brazzaville director Léandre-Alain Baker's poetic film Ramata, featuring the French/Guinean supermodel Katoucha Niane who tragically drowned in the Seine River just after the film's completion. New East African films will be represented by two brand-new feature films. Caroline Kamya's iMANi, telling three separate stories and set in the bustling Ugandan capital Kampala, and the UK premiere of Nathan Collett's Togetherness Supreme, a tale set in Kibera, one of Africa's largest slums in Nairobi, Kenya. Congo's fifty years of Independence is also on the bill and the program includes Fiona Lloyd-Davies's BBC documentary The World's Most Dangerous Place for Women. Congolese human rights activist Judith Wanga, who features in the documentary, will be present at the festival to share her experiences with the audience. BM
