#FESCAL 30 AFRICAN CINEMA FESTIVAL, D’ASIA E AMERICA LATINA

30BUT ONLINE EDITION SINCE 20 AL 28 MARCH 2021 WITH PROJECTIONS ON MYMOVIES.IT, MEETINGS WITH THE AUTHORS AND SPECIAL EVENTS ONLINE ON ZOOM AND FESTIVAL SOCIALS

IN CONCOMITANCE BACK FROM 15 AL 28 MARCH 2ND EDITION OF MIWORLD YOUNG FILM FESTIVAL ONLINE - MIWY THE FILM FESTIVAL FOR SCHOOLS DEDICATED TO KNOWING AFRICA'S CINEMATOGRAPHY AND CULTURES, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION

“That of this year, declared the artistic directors Annamaria Gallone and Alessandra Speciale, it will therefore be a "special" edition that, as well as celebrating an important anniversary, wants to be a reflection on the history of the festival and its initial mission: promote knowledge of the cinema of the three continents to help increase the cultural diversity of the cinema offer in Italy as an opportunity for dialogue, innovation and creativity ".

So the modalities change but not the variety and quality of the cultural offer: 9 days of screenings on the MyMovies.it platform accompanied by meetings with the authors, special and in-depth events as always inspired by the cultures of 3 continents, all available digitally. All the films in the program will be visible with the subscription of a subscription; the debates and events will be open to access on Zoom and streamed on the #FESCAAAL social channels.

The prismatic zebra, festival symbol, back on stage dressed up, combined with this year's claim, MiWorld From A to Zebra, than to summarize the research vocation of FESCAAAL that, since its inception in 1991, brings to Milan and Italy the lively artistic and cultural scene of the 3 continents, with particular attention to the new generations. Do not miss the pills 30 years that will accompany us on the web retracing the most significant moments of past editions with archival material, thirty years of festival and cinema history of the three continents.

CINEMATOGRAPHIC PROGRAM

The 30th edition will propose 50 film (among which 22 Italian premieres, 3 European first and 1 world premiere): a selection of the most recent productions of quality cinema from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Italy, picks up about 600 received films. All films are presented with Italian subtitles.

The opening film comes from sub-Saharan Africa, The night of kings ,by the French-Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte. After the world premiere at the 77th Venice Film Festival, La nuit des rois is gaining recognition all over the world, major awards include the Audience Award Amplify Voices Award in Toronto 2020, the Youth Jury Prize in Rotterdam 2021, e il Black Film Critics Circle Award 2021.

Shot in the hellish Abidjan prison, the bed, located between jungle and city, on the border between wild and civilized nature, the film descends into the physical and mental space of a prison movie and then "escapes" from the claustrophobic dimension and becomes a great tribute to the oral tradition of African entertainment: griot, theater, ritual songs, dance and magic. According to the prison ritual, in fact, a prisoner is elected to "roman" and must be able to entertain the other prisoners with his stories until dawn, on pain of death.

This year there will be a Special Section – "Women on the verge of changing the world". Scheduled, recent films by female directors from Africa, Asia and Latin America, and a round table to reflect on women's cinema and its social role from a contemporary perspective and to promote gender equality and the value of diversity.

It is an unprecedented path of self-representation of women on the screens to identify the new and breaking elements that independent extra-European cinema, and generally not Western, is introducing. If the film industry still too often relegates women to conventional and stereotyped roles, in the field of independent cinema, more explicitly social and political, they are often women, be they rebellious, oppressed or fighters, the real protagonists who tell and report. Among the titles:

Noura’s Dream, di Hinde Boujemaa, Tunisian director; the film has already received international acclaim, including a prestigious award at the Torino Film Festival, and the Tanit d'Oro at the Carthage Film Days. In the film "Hinde throws the veil of the Arab woman" victim "and portrays an unprecedented Muslim woman who fights for the right to love, even outside of marriage, without having to run the risk of being brought before the court. From Saudi Arabia, the Venice Critics' Week 2019 presented and awarded another breakthrough film, Scales of Shahad Ameen, whose stylistic experiments give life to the imaginative story of emancipation of a girl who fights against an ancestral rite. Outside the canons of neorealistic cinema of social denunciation, Ameen dares a dazzling black and white and tells us a black fairy tale inspired by a pre-Islamic legend, mysterious and cruel, where a thirteen-year-old heroine fights to change the rules in her village.

The film proposal will also be combined with a round table with the directors present entitled Private spaces, global issues, contemporary visions.

The three competitive sections

In line with the schedule dedicated to women's talents, the films in competition this year will be judged by an international female-only jury made up of some emerging faces of world cinema: la tunisina Hinde Boujemaa (awarded in 2019 al TFF per Noura's dream); Beatriz Seigner, Brazilian screenwriter and director, winner of the Audience Award at FESCAAAL 2019 with Los silencios and chaired by Michela Occhipinti, first Italian director to have made a film in Africa with an African woman as the protagonist, The body of the bride, selected at the Berlinale 2019 and fourth most awarded Italian film in the ranking 2019 by cinemaitaliano.info.

The International Jury will award the “Comune di Milano” Award to the Best Feature Film of the Windows on the World Competition, while a jury of Italian journalists will award the Award to the Best African Short Film and the Award to the Best Film of the Extr'A Competition dedicated to Italian films shot in the three continents and with a look at current events in our country.

In FEATURE FILM COMPETITION WINDOWS ON THE WORLD two revelation films of the Semaine de la Cannes review: Our mothers di Cesar Diaz (Golden Camera 2019) which tells the story of a son obsessed with finding the remains of his father disappeared at the time of the civil war in Guatemala and the humor and subtle satire of Le miracle du saint inconnu by Alaa Eddine Aljem who, through the vicissitudes of a thief in a desperate attempt to recover his loot, tells of contemporary Morocco. Also from Cannes, but from the Un Certain Regard section, the film Adam, first work by Maryam Touzani which confirms his talent with an intimate and sensitive story of friendship and solidarity between two single women, marginalized by Moroccan society. From Korea, instead, we stay within the walls of the house in Scattered Night by directors Lee Jihyoung and Kim Sol, with a disturbing family portrait in which parents on the verge of divorce are confronted with very precocious children. Sam Soko's documentary from Kenya, Softie (Best Documentary Award at Sundance 2020) He tells us 10 years of political and family vicissitudes of the young idealist leader Boniface Mwangi, from activism in the streets to regional elections openly challenging the powerful and corrupt political lobbies to death threats. From the Berlinale 2020, we present a preview of three films: Veins of the World of Byambasuren Davaa that enchants once again with the beauty of the landscapes of the Mongolian steppes on which it extends, But, the shadow of the indiscriminate exploitation of mining companies; the winner of the Generation Kplus Jury Prize, Los Lobos by the Mexican Samuel Kishi Leopo on the adaptation difficulties of a mother and her two children who recently immigrated from Mexico to the USA and fascinated by the myth of Disneyland; the story of the young nomad Laila against the backdrop of the magnificent landscapes of Kashmir and the tensions of the current conflict in The Shepherdness and the Seven Songs by Pushpendra Singh. From Angola, the dystopian vision of the director / artist Fradique who in Air Conditioner imagine that the air conditioners begin to fall mysteriously from the dilapidated buildings of Luanda. Winner of the Best Film of Chile Award 2019 the dramatic comedy between realism and Latin pop musical Lina from Lima by María Paz González which offers us the unpublished portrait of a Peruvian maid who after years in Chile, far from the family, decides to invent a new life.

 

AFRICAN SHORT FILMS COMPETITION

From the African Short Film Competition we would like to highlight the winner of the Carthage Film Days, True Story of Tunisian Amine Lakhnech, an anomalous film in the panorama of Arab production that is gradually detaching itself from the realistic approach and begins to flirt with film genres. Here the director combines a passion for comics, black magic and gothic horror to tell the story of marginalization and youthful anger of a girl who has been confined since birth because she was born with a heart that is too big. Grand Prix Winner for Best International short film at the Clermont-Ferrand festival 2020 and now in the running for the Oscar, Da Yie by Ghanaian Anthony Nti narrates, with a fast pace, the adventure to discover the dangerous world of adults of two suburban children and the existential doubts of a young criminal. Two emerging directors from Ethiopia and South Africa: Hiwot Admasu Getaneh presents his second short film A Fool God, about a rebellious girl who can't make sense of her grandmother's beliefs and begins to interpret ancient legends in her own way, e Zamo Mkhwanazi nel corto Sadla (presented in Toronto and Sundance 2020) he tells us in a few minutes a little story of ordinary abuse on the outskirts of a South African city.

from COMPETITION EXTR'A, dedicated to films by Italian directors, Talking Dreams by Bruno Rocchi, shot in a West African village where listeners of a local radio tell their dreams to receive advice and interpretations, revealing the psyche of a community marked by misery and migration; an unprecedented foray into the Ivorian community of Naples and into the phenomenon of the coupé décalé, in L’armée rouge by Luca Ciriello, which tells of the determination of a young man who escaped the civil war to establish himself on the scene of this very popular genre, organizing parties where the one who flaunts the most happiness wins, well-being and wealth. From Tunisia, con Those that remain, Sicilian director Ester Sparatore gives a voice to a group of women who fight against the social oblivion of their loved ones, arrived in Italy clandestinely and then disappeared. Another female direction with Aboy, by Chiara Delva who follows a young man from Gambia returning home from Europe as he stubbornly tries to rebuild his life; with the tones of the comedy This Is Not Cricket by Jacopo de Bertoldi leads us into the heart of a multi-ethnic district of Rome on the trail of two kids who dream of becoming cricket stars. Best film in Italiana.Corti at the Turin Film Festival 2020, Old Child by Elettra Bisogno narrates Hazem's fragmented journey of ghostly images in an experimental language, a young rollerblader from Gaza forced to leave his homeland.

The parallel section FLASH

To the three competitions and to the special section on women's cinema, alongside the Flash section, which presents important previews of established directors. Among the titles, the Italian preview of MLK / FBI, the new documentary by Sam Pollard which based on recently declassified files, unveils J's surveillance and blackmail. Edgar Hoover and the FBI against the leader of the civil rights movement Martin Luther King Jr. For the first time in Italy, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's journey to remote Uzbekistan in To the Ends of the Earth, where a young and frustrated Japanese TV reporter goes beyond emotional and geographical boundaries to reconnect with herself.

From China, in collaboration with the Confucius Institute of the University of Milan, another important preview: So Long, My Son, the masterpiece of a great master of Chinese cinema Wang Xiaoshuai, winner of two Silver Bears – an intense family fresco that, with a perfectly designed interlocking mechanism, spans three decades of Chinese history; also in collaboration with the Confucius Institute, the blockbuster in computer animation White Snake, film that combines fantasy, musicals and romance to tell a love story inspired by an ancient Chinese folk legend in which the spirit of a white snake falls madly in love with a snake hunter.

In the section from the Berlinale, Talking About Trees by Suhaib Gasmelbari who belongs to Amjad Abu Alala – Lion of the Future of Venice 2019 – marked the rebirth of Sudanese cinema. Exciting this documentary dedicated to a group of four directors, pioneers of cinema in Sudan, who have fought all their lives against an oppressive regime and who as elderly people still act of resistance trying to reopen a cinema in Karthoum.

AND ALL LAUGH…

The most pop section of the festival dedicated to comedies from 3 continenti presents this year a dramatic comedy from Brazil Three Summers by Brazilian director / artist Sandra Kogut that tells with irony and bitter humor the corruption of contemporary Brazil and the effects of the anti-corruption operation called "car wash" on the handyman housekeeper of a rich fallen family in disgrace and makes use of the histrionic interpretation of the Brazilian star Regina Casé.

OUT OF COMPETITION

Among the films out of competition, the latest work by Beatriz Seigner (member of the festival jury), the documentary Between Us, a Secret, written together with Walter Salles, goes from Brazil to the African continent in the footsteps of Toumani Kouyaté, a griot of Malian origins living in Brazil who is called by his grandfather to urgently return to his native country to hear one last story.

ROUND TABLE AFRICA TALKS

Fourth appointment of Africa Talks entitled “Cityscapes: the transformations of urban Africa ": a special event organized in collaboration with the EDU Foundation dedicated to Africa and its more technological and innovative aspects that will deepen the theme of African cities that look to the future.

The African city appears more and more in a certain sense as an archipelago of different areas (mostly unrelated), mainly connected through informal or local networks that strengthen ties within communities but not with the city as a whole.

Four speakers, from different disciplinary perspectives, they will bring their experiences, reflections and case studies on urbanization processes, on innovations in architecture and urban planning and on the different growth models of cities, not forgetting the aspects of urban marginalization and environmental sustainability.

The round table will be accompanied by the screening of The Great Green Wall, documentary made by Jared P. Scott, on the musical road where the Malian music star, Inna Modja, embarks on an exciting journey along the path of the Great Green Wall project, a barrier of trees against desertification, famine, climate change from Dakar to Djibouti; an African coast to coast in which Inna duets a local musician / singer in each city (Didier Awadi, Songhoy Blues, Waje and Betty G) for the creation of the album that will promote this African Dream and give hope for the future to the continent.

The Festival will host the 2nd MIWORLD YOUNG FILM FESTIVAL – MiWY

(15 – 28 March 2021) a beautiful journey that began in 2019 of the first and only film festival for schools in Italy entirely dedicated to the knowledge of the cinema and cultures of Africa, Asia and Latin America and intercultural education. With 13 film, 5 new partners throughout the country, 3 special juries, 4 awards, 1 masterclass for 2nd grade secondary school students e 1 webinar for teachers, the MiWorld Young Film Festival will be an opportunity for young viewers to get to know unpublished films and meet with directors from three continents in a perspective of intercultural dialogue. A real path of education for Global Citizenship, to be included in the didactic plan of Civic Education.

Among the films selected and presented to an audience of young viewers is the Bhutanese opera Lunana: a Yak in the classroom by Pawo Choyning Dorji a story about friendship, respect for the environment and the importance of education, linked to the cult of the yak, the great Asian mammal, subject of many Bhutan traditions. From Lebanon 1982 di Oualid Mouaness, a film that comes from the director's memories and reconstructs the atmosphere of amazement and unconsciousness among the school desks on that day of 1982 in which an air invasion started the first Israeli-Lebanese war.

Participation in screenings and meetings is free with reservations required.

Registration for the classes is still open.

All general information for joining and scheduled films are available on the COE Association website by contacting Manuela Pursumal with an e-mail to coescuola@coeweb.org

More information:

www.festivalcinemaafricano.org

www.coeweb.org

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