AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL NEW ZEALAND

JULY 18, 2024 TO JULY 28, 2024

Freedom is Not Free

Since its adoption in June 1955 by the Congress movement, the Freedom Charter has been the key political document that acted as a beacon and source of inspiration in the liberation struggle against Apartheid. It was reputedly the main source that informed democratic South Africa’s liberal constitution and a constant reference point for the ruling […]

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Dhalinyaro

Deka, Asma and Hibo are three young Djibuti women from different socio-economic backgrounds who are studying for their secondary school graduation exam together. A beautiful insight into lives and loyalties of Djibouti teenagers whose concerns, in spite of an externally repressive culture, are those of teenagers everywhere regardless of religions and traditions. […]

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Under the Starry Sky

Between Turin, Dakar, and New York, Sophie, Abdoulaye and Thierno’s three destinies cross paths and echo one another, delineating a constellation of exile. Sophie, 24 years old, leaves Dakar to join her husband, Abdoulaye, in Turin. Meanwhile, Abdoulaye has already left for New York through a smuggler’s network. 19-year-old Thierno is travelling in Africa for […]

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They Will Have to Kill Us First

They Will Have To Kill Us First: Malian music in exile is a feature-length documentary following musicians in Mali in the wake of a jihadist takeover and subsequent banning of music. Music, one of the most important forms of communication in Mali, disappeared overnight in 2012 when Islamic extremists groups rose up to capture an […]

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The Shore Break

On South Africa’s stunning Wild Coast, the Pondo people have tended their traditional way of life for centuries. Nonhle, a young local eco-tour guide, is a staunch supporter of her people and the endangered environment on which their livelihood and culture depend. Her cousin Madiba, a local entrepreneur, is fully supportive of an Australian titanium-mining […]

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The Mask from San

Tribal masks are loaded with significance but must retain their mystery. Taking his cue from this, acclaimed director Jacques Sarasin has carved a film of great beauty, a voyage between magic and reality that explores with respect and potency the culture – and secrets – of the Bambara of Mali. At its heart is the […]

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Stories of Our Lives

Stories of Our Lives began as an archive of testimonials from Kenyan persons who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex assembled by a small Nairobi-based multidisciplinary arts collective. So compelling were these stories that the ten-member association of artists, social workers and entrepreneurs was inspired to adapt some of them into short films. […]

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SEMBENE!

In 1952, Ousmane Sembéne, a dockworker and fifth-grade dropout from Senegal, began dreaming an impossible dream: to become the storyteller for a new Africa. SEMBENE!, a feature-length documentary, tells the unbelievable true story of the “father of African cinema”, the self-taught novelist and filmmaker who fought, against enormous odds, a monumental, 50-year-long battle to give […]

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Fevers

With his mother in prison and nowhere to go except a welfare home, Benjamin, thirteen, insists on living with his unknown father, Karim, who, as he says bluntly to his grandfather, “had sex with my mother”. Karim still lives in the home of his parents, a family already traumatised by displacement and personal tragedy. They […]

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Run

Run is running away…he has just killed his country’s Prime Minister. Therefore he had to take the face and clothes of a madman wandering throughout the town for months. His life returns to him in flashes: his childhood with master Tourou, when he dreamt of becoming a rainmaker, his incredible adventures with Greedy Gladys and […]

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Difret

From executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt comes the award-winning drama Difret, based on the inspirational true story of a young Ethiopian girl and a tenacious lawyer embroiled in a life-or-death clash between cultural traditions and their country’s advancement of equal rights. When 14-year-old Hirut is abducted in her rural village’s tradition of kidnapping women for […]

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He Even Has Your Eyes

In their mid-30s, Paul and Sali are happily married and the proud new owners of their own fl orist’s store. The only cloud on their horizon is the long wait to adopt a child. Sali’s Senegalese parents, Mamita and Ousmane, even have a name ready for their future grandson: Lamine. Just when the couple had […]

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