“I don’t want to just entertain – I want to hit the very soul of the viewers,” says Majid Michel in the interview posted below, made by Erawoc Bros Group and Digiglobal Media. Michel, the recipient of Nollywood & African Film Critics Award for Best Actor in 2011 as well as the African Movie Academy… Read more »
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Love Nollywood? Stream It
Innovation – in filmmaking, storytelling – has long been a marker of Nollywood. Innovation has long marked distribution channels as well, and the layered conversation about the line between piracy, copyright law, and fulfilling public demand gets complicated. Perhaps we’re closer to a solution to Nollywood’s 50 percent losses to piracy now with the rise… Read more »
‘Nature, Family, Work, Spirituality’: The Home Movies of Ernest Beane
Ernest Beane was a Pullman porter who must have really, really loved making home movies; a collection of his films – housed at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland – is a wonderful and wide ranging testament to black middle class life in the 1930s and 40s. Last year’s Home Movie Day at… Read more »
Headlining the American Black Film Festival
The American Black Film Festival began yesterday evening with the showing of Beasts of the Southern Wild. Tonight at the Colony Theater will be HBO’s Short Film Competition, with Better Mus’ Come and Raising Izzie completing the primetime films for the festival. Many more films are being screened, along with several other events, including a… Read more »
‘Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction’ at Bristol’s Arnolfini
An exhibit at the Arnolfini in Bristol has been exploring how Africa is expressed in science fiction with films, photography, visual art, and other media. The exhibit’s stated aim is to explore the “recent tendency for artists and filmmakers to apply the forms and concerns of science fiction to narratives situated in the African continent.”… Read more »
‘Dear Mandela’ Takes Top Prize at the Brooklyn Film Festival
Dear Mandela, a South African documentary about Abahlali baseMjondolo, has won the Golden Chameleon (yes – that’s the top nod) at this year’s Brooklyn Film Festival, Sleeping Giant and Fireworx Media have announced. The Golden Chameleon now joins the Golden Butterfly (Movies That Matter Film Festival’s top prize) in a growing list of accolades for… Read more »
'Inspector Lou' Next from ‘Viva Riva!’ Team
More details on the next project from Director Djo Munga and producer Steven Markovitz (of Viva Riva! fame and prestige) have emerged. Back in March, we heard that the duo were seeking funding – in China and beyond – for Inspector Lou, billed as a Sino-African thriller. We’ve now learned more from South Africa’s City… Read more »
Call for Papers: Evolving African Film Cultures
The African Media Center at the University of Westminster has issued a call for papers for their November, 2012 conference ‘Evolving African Film Cultures: Local & Global Experiences.’ The conference will focus on “changes in African film and television production and, of equal importance, the transformation of African film audiences in local and global contexts.”… Read more »
‘Changing the Game’ from North Philly to Wall Street
Four days ago, Rel Dowel’s ‘Changing the Game,’ with Tony Todd, Irma P. Hall, and Kirk Jones, opened in 5 cities (Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, D.C., and Atlanta). It’s been getting some great reviews and generating an amount of hype, with NYC Movie Guru calling the film “suspenseful, intriguing, wise and genuinely heartfelt.” The synopsis: An epic… Read more »
The Loving Story out on DVD May 14th
From HBO documentaries, The Loving Story focuses on the marriage between Richard Perry Loving and Mildred Loving. In 1958, the couple was arrested in Virginia for violation of Virginia’s anti-miscegenation laws; Richard was white while Mildred was black and Native American. The case became the basis for Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court case… Read more »