African Effect Film Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, January30 - February 12
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on January 28, 2009 under African Effect Film Festival | 
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The 7th Annual African Effect Film Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico, celebrates the impact of African cultures with two weeks of films and workshops from January 30 - February 12, 2009.
Films include:
THE FUTURE OF MUD
7:30 pm Tuesday, February 10
“A compelling narrative about traditional building … One gets a true sense of love and craft.” -TreeHugger.com
Through the story of a mason, Susan Vogel’s documentary examines Mali’s tradition of mud architecture, including thick walls with tiny windows that keep the interiors cool despite the stifling heat. The story is set in Djenne, whose striking designs have made it a World Heritage site. From the creation sun-dried bricks to the stirring, completely unexpected rituals around the annual repair of the city’s Great Mosque, this film offers a view of a culture and architecture seldom seen. (Mali, 2007, 58m, video)
A discussion and slideshow with Simone Swan, director, Adobe Alliance, and architect Beverly Spears, author, American Adobes: Rural Houses of Northern New Mexico, will follow screening
AS WE FORGIVE
3:30 pm Saturday, February 7
Winner, Student Oscar, Best Documentary Winner, Heartland Film Festival, Angelus Film Festival, All Roads Film Festival
After one of the world’s most brutal genocides, Rwanda undertook a bold experiment in reconciliation, one that festival guest Atema Eclai participated in. This program combines her first-hand accounts, a screening of Laura Waters Hinson’s AS WE FORGIVE and a post-screening seminar on incorporating lessons from Rwanda into our daily lives. Hisnon’s film asks: Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? The story follows two women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. Rosaria must confront Saveri, who murdered her sister. After confessing his crime, begins to build her a house to repent. Chantal, who lost 30 members of her family, finds the strength to face john, a former family friend who killed her father. With no easy answers, Rwandans are stretching our concepts of human redemption, rebuilding their lives, and a society, through reconciliation of the deepest kind. (U.S.-Rwanda, 2008, 53m, video)
IN PRISON MY WHOLE LIFE
2 pm Sunday, February 1
Winner, Grand Prize, Geneva Human Rights Festival
Though locked deep inside Death Row, Mumia AbuJamal has managed to penetrate the consciousness of people worldwide. Among them is William Francome, who happened to be born the day Mumia was arrested. Marc Evan’s film explores the strange case of the man who, through his books, articles and broadcasts from prison, has become “the Voice of the Voiceless.” Tracking his case, and the resistance movement to American injustices, Francome talks to luminaries including Angela Davis, Mos Def, Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Snoop Dogg, Steve Earle and Amy Goodman. Jane Davis of HOPE HOWSE will lead a post-film discussion about the human impacts of the American judicial and prison systems and talk about current reform initiatives. (U.S.-England, 2008, 90m, DVCam)
IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA
3 pm Sunday, February 8
“Four ½ stars … Compelling and greatly informative.” -Eye on Film
Following two decades of brutal civil war, Liberia is ripe for change. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is ready to lead. In January, 2006, the Harvard-educated grandmother of eight became Africa’s first elected female head of state. Even after winning a run-off election with 59 percent of the vote, the “Iron Lady” faces enormous obstacles in rebuilding her war-torn country, including a $5 billion debt to the West, massive corruption at home and armed opponents loyal to her predecessor, the vicious Charles Taylor. At her side, however, are a female police chief and ministers of finance, justice, commerce and gender. Can these women set a new agenda for Africa in the 21st century? As Daniel Junge and Siatta Scott Johnson’s film shows, they already are. (U.S.-Liberia, 2007, 77m, video)
Following the screening, Bill Saa and Atema Eclai will discuss the ways in which African women are leading the way towards a forward-looking politics of reconciliation and unity.
CAMP DE THIAROYE
1:30 pm Saturday, January 31
Introduced by Samba Gadjigo, author, Sembene: Revolutionary Artist
“A novelistic and often witty treatment of a complex subject.” -Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Of the many extraordinary films of the late Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema, this funny, heartbreaking, transformative tale may be his most revolutionary in terms of both form and content. Rarely seen in the U.S. and based on true events, this story follows Senegalese troops whose triumphant return from heroic duty on the European fronts of World War II are marred when the French Army unapologetically reneges on its commitments. One of cinema’s great tales of resistance, told with a combination of Beckett-like absurdity and historical verisimilitude, CAMP DE THIAROYE is an epic in miniature, with
all the richness and nuance of a great novel. Samba Gadjigo, Sembene’s official biographer, will introduce the film. (Senegal, 1987, 147m, 35mm, in French and Wolof w/ English subtitles, New Yorker Films)
MANDABI
5:15 pm Friday, Jan. 30
Introduced by Samba Gadjigo, author,
Sembene: Revolutionary Artist
“Displays a controlled sophistication that gives it a feeling of almost classic direct-ness and simplicity.” -New York Times
Sembene’s first comedy, first film in color and first work in an African language consists of a series of comic mishaps involving one man’s futile attempts to cash a check from France. Deceptively simple but rich with layered meaning, the story includes corrupt government officials, impoverished members of Dakar’s proletariat and a clash between villagers and Africa’s burgeoning commodity culture. Though attacked in the press upon initial release, Sembene’s satire today is recognized as a signal work of world cinema, and a tribute to Sembene’s vision and humanism. (Senegal, 1968, 90m, 35mm, in French and Wolof with English subtitles, New Yorker Films)