You may download the 2023 poster/viewing schedule here.
Friday, March 24 | 7PM
Precious Hair & Beauty
John Ogunmuyiwa, United Kingdom, 2021, 11 minutes
An ode to the mundanity and madness of the high street, told through the window of an African hair salon.
Saint Omer
Alice Diop, Senegal/France, 2022, 122 minutes
Follow Rama, a novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly at the Saint-Omer Criminal Court to use her story to write a modern-day adaptation of the ancient myth of Medea. Things do not go as expected.
Saturday, March 25 | 7PM
La Star
Kevin Mavakala, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2022, 14 minutes
A director does everything possible to ensure his film shoot is successful. Unfortunately for him, he casts an actress who does not make his task easy.
Tug Of War (Vuta N’Kuvute)
Amil Shivji, Tanzania and South Africa, 2021, 92 minutes
Denge, a young freedom fighter, meets Yasmin, an Indian-Zanzibari woman, in the middle of the night as she is on her way to be married. Passion and revolution ensue in this coming-of-age political love story set in the final years of British colonial Zanzibar.
Reception and post-show discussion with Amil Shivji, moderated by filmmaker Ekwa Msangi following screening.
Sunday, March 26 | 7PM
Egúngún (Masquerade)
Olive Nwosu, Nigeria, 2021, 14 minutes
A woman returns to her hometown of Lagos in search of healing. What she discovers instead is a path that takes her into her past and toward a new understanding of the people and experiences that shaped her. Egúngún (Masquerade) is a meditation on home, memory, and identity — on the many versions of ourselves that haunt us.
Xalé
Moussa Sene Absa, Senegal, 2022, 101 minutes
The drama centers on Awa, a 15-year-old student, and her twin brother (and confidante) Adama, who dreams of a better life in Europe. When their beloved grandmother arranges for their Aunt Fatou to marry a relative whom Fatou detests, the results of this forced union bear consequences not only for the unhappy couple, but for the community — and, most gravely, for the twins. The film boldly inflects contemporary melodrama with traditional storytelling modes in this potent, music-filled tale of one woman’s tragedy and transcendence.