Twelve films with an African connection were featured in this year’s festival, including stories of Africans from Kenya, Egypt, Eritrea, Cameroon, Sudan, and Angola.
Whether immigrating to Europe, protecting one’s family from an angry mob, or becoming the next African Bruce Lee, the protagonists in these films showcase the diversity of the African continent and the continuous journey of its residents to improve their lives, heal, and comprehend their past traumas.
In many Western festivals, programming African cinema has been limited to melodrama and documentaries. This year, the films selected showed a diversity of genres, from crime thrillers to folk animation, featuring African filmmakers experimenting with different techniques to communicate their stories.
Here are The Africa Report’s top eight films from this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival.
After the Long Rains (2024) directed by Damien Hauser
Kenya
91 mins
Eleven-year-old Aisha (Eletricer Kache Hamisi) is tasked with a school assignment to describe what she wants to be when she grows up. She wants to sail to Europe and become a movie star. In her small town of Watamu, she befriends an alcoholic sailor, Hassan, to teach her how to become a fisherwoman and command a boat. However, her traditional mother refuses to allow her to learn, asserting that fishing is a man’s job.
Hauser’s beautiful ode to children’s ambition, and its reflection of life in contemporary Kenya, transcends the modern vs traditional aspect of Aisha’s experience. For Hauser, the director, writer, editor, production designer, and producer, the film is not about Aisha reaching her goals, but about the beauty of the interactions she develops with other members of the village while pursuing her dream.
Aisha’s journey creates a rift in her community, but one that can be seen as a beacon of hope that inspires others to pursue their unfulfilled desires, whether it is doing what they love or becoming closer to their families.
Stero (Badass Hero) (2024) directed by Tevin Kimathi and Millan Tarus
Kenya
13 mins
Aspiring to be like his idol Bruce Lee, yet with no coach, let alone a dojo, young Kenyan student Bruce Koech (Kael Wafubwa) practices martial arts in the forest. His goal is to become a Stero, which translates as “badass hero” in Swahili. Tevin Kimathi and Millan Tarus’s short invites the viewer on a journey into Bruce’s imagination, where he is guided by a mythical master, learning to fight his enemies blindfolded while yelling in Swahili.
When he wakes up from the daydreaming sequence, which is colourfully captured by the camerawork of cinematographer Viboks Omondi, Bruce returns to school and is surrounded by students wearing grey and blue school outfits. The film’s mood and colour tone become darker, as the young martial arts fan gets reprimanded for speaking Swahili by the English-speaking headmaster. Kimathi and Tarus’s sincere take on childhood rebellion and a repressive school system in post-independence Kenya makes a statement against enforcing cultural imperialism (here the English language) on indigenous populations.
Madame Luna (2024) directed by Daniel Espinosa
Sweden
110 mins
In Madame Luna (2024), Chilean-born, Sweden-based director Daniel Espinosa goes beyond the stereotypical representation of African refugees in Europe to present a crime thriller drama following Almaz, an Eritrean female human trafficker known among desperate immigrants as Madame Luna. Espinosa tailors a complex backstory for Almaz, creating a richly nuanced character who is played confidently by the brilliant Meninet Abraha Teferi.
To escape persecution, she undertakes the hazardous boat journey to Italy herself, where she is placed in a Calabrian refugee camp. She uses her skills and connections to try to evade authorities and traffic other girls to work for the Italian mafia. Espinosa, who is known internationally for the 2010 Swedish thriller Easy Money, directs a powerful story about the redemption of a morally challenged trafficker.
Zanatany, L’empreinte des linceuls esseulés (Zanatany, the traces of discarded shrouds) (2024) directed by Hachimiya Ahamada
Belgium
27 mins
Although there is still no official death toll for the number of people who died in the Majunga revolt in 1979 in Madagascar, an estimated 2,000 Cameroonians are thought to have lost their lives over three days. This incident, on which the film is based, still haunts relations between Cameroon and Madagascar.
In this well-acted and expressive short film, the French-Cameroonian director conveys the experience of living through a revolt through the story of Ali (Soeuf ElBadawi). On his way to work, Ali witnesses a simple neighbourhood dispute, which later turns into a violent conflict. ElBadawi delivers a strong performance of a father’s quest to find and protect his daughters amid the chaos, expressing some of the anxiety that the residents in Majunga had to endure, transforming the film into a testament to family solidarity.
Godsterminal (2024) directed by Georg Tiller
Austria
90 mins
Godsterminal is the final part of Austrian director Georg Tiller’s Gotland trilogy. The film is made in close collaboration with Sudanese actor/writer Edward Weki who plays the main character of Eddie in this and the first two films, Persona Beach (2011) and Overnight Flies (2016). A hybrid project that blends fiction and reality, Tiller gently tackles the harsh reality of immigrants’ integration into post-modernist European societies, following the fragmented memories of Eddie, an old Sudanese worker who is being treated for Parkinson’s disease on the Swedish island of Fårö.
As Eddie tries to remember the traumas of his past, he is aided by two fictional characters, inspired by Tiller’s fascination with Swedish cinema godfather Ingmar Bergman. Tiller brings forward the cold and harsh visual aesthetics of Fårö, where Bergman’s The Seventh Seal was shot and explores the warmth between the characters to tell a unique story of an African immigrant who wants to eliminate his alienation in his last days. African elements appear in the film, too. In Bergman’s films, Death is a character who plays chess, while Tiller’s Death plays abanga, an East and Central African game that originates from the Zande people.
Mário (2024) directed by Billy Woodberry
Portugal
120 mins
In Mário (2024), veteran American filmmaker Billy Woodberry tells the story of Angolan-born Mário de Andrade (1928-1990), an intellectual, activist, diplomat, and poet who spearheaded the pan-African movement in Europe where he was exiled.
Despite being safe in Paris, De Andrade carried the scars of colonialism, fighting not to let this tragedy happen again anywhere in the world. Mário is a tribute to internationalism, and to the many activists from the global south who spend their lives in exile, fighting for the freedom of their oppressed countries.
Woodberry was part of the L.A. Rebellion film movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which connected the civil rights movement to the anti-imperialist struggle in Africa. He masterfully uses the photography and footage archive of Portugal’s colonialism of Angola to tell De Andrade’s story, adding interviews from the intellectual’s friends and family.
The Sacred Cave (2023) directed by Daniel Minlo, Cyrille Masso
Cameroon
95 mins
In their feature-length animation film, The Sacred Cave, veteran filmmaker Cyrille Masso and animator Daniel Minlo deliver the mystery and thrill of African folk tales to a wider audience through beautifully illustrated images. After the king of Mabunos is poisoned, an oracle suggests that the crown prince should embark on a journey to find a cure in the sacred cave, leaving the kingdom open to tribal conflict.
The animators illustrated the spiritual kingdom of Mabunos, in Cameroon, using vibrantly coloured villages, dark forests, and the vast and picturesque desert. The film’s strongest point is the animation; the plot, driven by simple characters, who are confined to traditional methods of storytelling, entices the audience, even those who are unaware of this particular legend.
Voy! Voy! Voy! (2023) directed by Omar Hilal
Egypt
107 mins
In his new dark comedy, Egyptian director Omar Hilal engages with the socio-political reality of post-2013 Egypt through the story of a group of men who pretend to be visually impaired so they can travel legally to Europe and run away. The film follows Hassan (played by Mohamed Farrag), who, disillusioned with dangerous illegal immigration routes to Europe, plans a con job with his friends Edra and Saeed, to travel to the Blind Football World Cup in Poland, and then go AWOL with the hope of securing a better future.
Based on a true story of a real scandal that shocked Egypt in 2015, Hilal examines the country’s poverty and unemployment, as well as the desperation of millions of Egyptian youths who are willing to risk their lives and savings to come to Europe. Almost all the characters admit they are alienated from their lives in Egypt and feel worthless. However, the film transcends the typical melodrama that is usually found in North African films screened in Europe, offering a satirical commentary that balances aesthetic comic appeal with socio-political relevance, appealing to both international and domestic audiences.
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