Africa in Motion Celebrates Ten Years of Outstanding African Cinema in Scotland

The full 2015 Programme will launch at 10am on Monday 21st September

Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival runs from the 23rd October – 1st November 2015

Africa in Motion is Scotland’s major annual celebration of African cinema, and is delighted to return this year to celebrate ten years of bringing you inspiring, thought-provoking and creative cinema from the African continent. The programme this year will once again be packed with an eclectic array of films, director Q&As, masterclasses, music events, an African TV lounge, children’s workshops and more.

The theme of Africa in Motion 2015 is Connections, exploring the interrelatedness of the myriad aspects of African experiences. The programme of films and events engages with the many diverse interpretations of Connections - from political connections, artistic collaborations, generational ties, lost and restored cultural links, and pan-Africanism. Highlights include the creatively curated documentary The Dream of Shahrazad that blends together multiple stories of art and activism. The rich traditions of African storytelling will be further discovered through a documentary about one of the most prominent female African writers in The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo. Family ties, kinship and lost relations are the focus of films such as It’s Me, Anna and Ayanda, both by South Africa’s leading female filmmaker Sara Blecher. Audiences will venture down African streets to discover the continent’s cities in films such as Egyptian classic Cairo Station and the UK premiere of Ugandan feature The Boda Boda Thieves. Lost connections with the African continent will be uncovered in the powerful documentary Bound: African vs. African American. Fragments and disconnections within contemporary Africa are explored through our strand of experimental films, including the striking Rwandan feature Things of the Aimless Wanderer.

The festival will open in Edinburgh on Friday 23 Oct with Senegalese maverick director Djibril Diop Mambety’s towering masterpiece Hyènes (Hyenas), an intimate story of love and revenge, and a critique of neo-colonialism and the effects of consumerism on African cultures. The screening will be followed by an opening party celebrating the 10th edition at Summerhall, an evening filled with African beats, circus acts, and African-style cocktails and snacks.  

Hyenas is also presented as part of a special strand entitled From Africa, with Love, which includes tales of love, passion, tenderness and lust from across Africa. This is presented in association with the BFI UK Film Audience Network’s LOVE Blockbuster Season, and the four other African film festivals in the UK, who hope to ignite the fire of love in your heart through cinema. Some of the other films in this strand include Jenna Cato-Bass’ South African feature film, Love the One You Love and Kenyan director Jim Chuchu’s collection of LGBT short films, Stories of Our Lives.

The tenth Africa in Motion Film Festival will be host to a number of UK premieres, and will be graced with the presence of a number of esteemed African filmmakers, including Philippe Lacôte (director of RUN) Sara Blecher (It’s Me, Anna and Ayanda), Samba Gadjigo (Sembène!), Kivu Ruhorahoza (Things of the Aimless Wanderer), and Yaba Badoe (The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo).

Other significant aspects of this year’s festival include the Nigerian-Scottish Film Odyssey, which explores the connections between the film industries in Nigeria and Scotland through red carpet Nollywood film screenings, director Q&As and an industry day. The newly inaugurated AiM TV Lounge located in the Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, will present a daily selection of popular African television shows including soaps, sports shows, mockumentaries, and cooking programmes. In keeping with the festival theme, a strand entitled The Unrepaired Past will focus on connecting the histories of slavery and colonisation to the present. Once again, the festival will be presenting films outside of traditional theatrical setting, through our Nomad Cinema series, which will see films being viewed in a great diversity of settings, including lecture theatres, community centres, cafes and more.

AiM will also present a special exhibition of photographs on the theme Ways We Watch Films in Africa, which captures the diverse and innovative film-viewing habits across the African continent. This exhibition is comprised of a selection of photographs that were submitted to AiM as part of a competition and will be displayed in Filmhouse, Edinburgh and The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow for the duration of the festival. Further competition strands include the annual Africa in Motion Short Film Competition, this year rebranded as the Aduna Award for Best Short Film, and a brand-new documentary competition strand. 

Festival Founder and Adviser, Lizelle Bisschoff, says: “When we took the first small steps towards organising an African film festival in Scotland ten years ago, we could not have imagined how much the festival would grow in scope, audiences and diversity over the course a decade. The growth of Africa in Motion mirrors the growth of filmmaking on the African continent. While we celebrate ten years of Africa in Motion, we also reflect on ten years of expanding and diversifying our views of the continent and strengthening our connections with Africa.” 

Since its inception in 2006, Africa in Motion has introduced nearly 30,000 audience members to the brilliance and diversity of African cinema. To view the full programme of AiM 2015 and book tickets, visit www.africa-in-motion.org.uk.

Media Contact

For press tickets, hi-res images and interviews please contact Justine Atkinson on 07971740678 / justine@africa-in-motion.org.uk  

Images, logos, images, press releases, press accreditation forms will be available for download from: www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/press

Notes to Editors

Africa in Motion is an audience-based festival, founded in 2006 by African film researcher Lizelle Bisschoff. The main aims of the festival have been, since its inception, to introduce Scottish audiences to the brilliance of African cinema and to overcome the under-representation and marginalisation of African film in British film-going culture.

Principal funder: Creative Scotland

Other funders: BFI Love; Film Audience Network; United Kingdom/Nigeria 2015-2016; School of Arts and Humanities; University of Stirling; Glasgow Life; Alliance Francaise; Global Development Academy; Coalition for Racial and Equality and Rights; University of Edinburgh; Centre of African Studies; University of Edinburgh; School of Divinity; University of Edinburgh; University of Glasgow; Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies.