Festival of Cinema of Africa, Asia and Latin America, Milano, April 4. – 10., 2016
The opening of the exhibition Designing Africa 3.0 on Sunday, April 3, in Casello Ovest di Porta Venezia in Milan, marked the beginning of this year’s Festival of Cinema of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Initially, the festival was dedicated to African cinema. This, the 26th edition, concentrates on the highest quality art cinema from the three continents. The highly sophisticated Japanese cinema is quite different from Nollywood, a purely Nigerian invention of straight-to-the-video films.
However, the festivals’ team ambition to represent the cinematic creativity of a great part of the world in one single event, deserves respect. Films of renowned filmmakers such as Japanese Takeshi Kitano (Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen, screened at the Teatro dell’Arte of the Trienale di Milano on Monday, April 4 at 20.30) and Korean Kim Ki-Duk (Stop, screened at the Auditorium San Fedele on Tuesday, April 5 at 19.00), are the highlights this year.
They warrant quality and will, considering that Italy already performed a pioneering role in introducing Asian cinematographies to the Global North, create much-needed publicity. A section of Italian films on the “revolutionary political, social and artistic movements of contemporary Africa” is a welcome introduction to creative powers of the Global South. The only Nigerian film in the program is a short film Ireti (screened Tuesday, April 5 and Wednesday, April 6 at the Auditorium San Fedele at 21.00 and at 15.00 respectively), directed by a distinguished Nollywood producer, actress and director Tope Oshin, with Anne Njemanze from the legendary film Domitilla (directed by Zeb Ejiro, 1996) in the leading role.
The Milano screening will be the film’s world premiere and it will, hopefully, confirm the idea, expressed by Rem Koolhaas after his contact with Nigerian metropolis Lagos, that this is “our future”. This interest in Africa as the future is the greatest achievement of the Festival and one shall hope that future editions will bring more of black African cinema to the cinemas of Milan.
www.festivalcinemaafricano.org
