Women in the African cinema of FCAT

The Mujeres por África Foundation will award the best actress of the eight films that compete in the “Long-Sightedness” section

festival-cine-africano-cordoba-2015

Cordoba, 17th of March 2015. The twelfth edition of the Cordoba African Film Festival is characterised by a strong presence of women that have a key role in the cinematographic production. The increasing visibility of women in the African cinema is an important element to walk towards the equality. This equality is essential because allow women to be “recognized as filmmakers, and their works analysed in the same aesthetic and formal terms as men” as the researcher Beatriz Leal stated. In this sense, FCAT wants to show its commitment in the visibility of female directors, writers, actresses, editors, etc. This visibility is reflected in their presence in film festivals and media.

The FCAT’s director, Mane Cisneros, believes that this commitment is a priority in the working line of the Festival, which since twelve years ago is looking to give visibility to the less distributed cinematography of our planet, the African one.

Browsing the catalogue of the Festival, one can appreciate an increasing percentage of women that are present in the film developing processes, with a strong prominence of the North African region. Specifically, at the helm of the film direction of the FCAT program and heading the list we can mention Pocas Pascoal of Angola who is member of the jury and also the director of the feature film Por aqui tudo bem. Other feminine names that sounds are the Moroccan Dalila Ennadre (Des mures et des hommes), the Tunisians Kaouther Ben Hania (Le Challat de Tunis, Peau de colle) and Nadia Touijer (Précipice), The South African Jenna Cato Bass (Love the One you Love), the Senegalese Khady & Mariama Sylla (Une simple parole, Une fenêtre ouverte), the Franco-Malagasy Marie Clémence Paes (L’opéra du bout du monde), the Franco-Egyptian Jihan El Tahri (Behind the rainbow, Cuba, une odyssée africaine), the French Yolande Zauberman (Classified People), Sarah Maldoror (Sambizanga) and Marion Hänsel (Si le vent soulève les sables), the Angolan Maria Joao Ganga (Na Cidade Vazia) and the Senegalese Angèle Diabang (Congo, un médecin pour sauver les femmes).

But the female representation in FCAT is not limited to the film direction. Some of the writers that appear in the credits are Dalila Ennadre, Jihan El Tahri, Kessen Tall, Sherin Diab or Lucie Dèche. In production, Angèle Diabang or Mariamma Sylla. And in edition, Nadia ben Rachid (editor of Abderrahmane Sissako and other film of Sissako and other directors).

Special mention, the presence of the actresses of the Festival, that will be celebrated through the “Best Actress in a Feature Film Award”, given in the competitive section of “Long-Sightedness”.

The best actress, awarded by the Mujeres por África Foundation

The Mujeres por África Foundation, headed by Mª Teresa Fernández de la Vega, collaborates one more edition with the Cordoba African Film Festival, supporting and promoting the presence of women in cinematographic African productions. Their activities related with the connection of women and cinema as “Ellas son cine” —a film series directed by women— shows this support. In this occasion, in the fiction and competitive category “Long-Sightedness”, the Mujeres por África Foundation will award the best actress of the eight films that compete for this prize of 2000€, that the Foundation sponsors. The films that will compete are: Abaabi ba boda boda, Al bahr min, Decor, L’armée du salut, Le Challat de Tunis, Love the One you Love, Stories of our Lives and Things of the Aimless Wonderer.

This award is a symbol of the commitment to walk towards an increasing visibility of the women in the African cinematographic creations, and also to continue approaching the new tendencies of the African cinema to a Spanish-speaker public.

FCAT 2015

The Cordoba African Film Festival – FCAT 2015 will celebrate its twelfth edition from 21st to 28th of March, being the only cinematographic event devoted to African cinema in the Spanish speaker world. Sixty films of thirty countries will be projected during those days.The current edition of the Festival will have two main competitive sections (“Long-Sightedness” and “Shortly”) and four parallel sections (“Afroscope”, “Tales from the Past:  South Africa and Angola”, “Tribute to Emil Abossolo Mbo” and “African Diaspora”). Beyond of the program screening the Festival organizes different parallel activities as the “Learning Space” or the “African Village”, among others.

Source: press release

 

 

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