Akojo Film Collective presents African Cinema Now!, a series dedicated to contemporary African Cinema by and about Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. This collective began as an inquiry into the position of contemporary African cinema in the imaginations of Canadian filmgoers and the wider film festival circuit. African Cinema Now! serves as a gateway to creating necessary dialogue around contemporary African cinema that is often disregarded within mainstream Canadian film spaces.
The series invites audiences to watch and engage with African cinema through thematic installments that will take place year-round at the VIFF Centre.
Akojo Film Collective consists of Kika Memeh and Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, both curators and programmers based in Vancouver on the Coast Salish lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. They share an interest in contemporary African cinema and the numerous possibilities it holds as a way of understanding modern realities born from the African continent’s colonial past.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
After finding her uncle's dead body on the roadside by a brothel, Shula grapples with her Zambian family's sanctification of a monstrous man. This darkly comedic absurdist drama was a prize winner at Cannes for director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch).
The Pirogue
When offered the chance to lead one of the many Senegalese pirogues bound for Europe via the Canary Islands, Baye Laye reluctantly accepts the job, knowing full-well the many perils that lie ahead.
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Mother of George
Following their joyous wedding, complications arise for a Nigerian couple living in Brooklyn when they're unable to conceive a child - a problem that devastates their family, defies cultural expectations, and leads the wife to make a shocking decision.
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Chez Jolie Coiffure
Having immigrated to Belgium from Cameroon, Sabine manages Chez Jolie Coiffure. Her salon patrons, many of them undocumented immigrants, are not only be made to feel beautiful but can also escape the daily difficulties and harsh realities of their lives.
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Atlantics
In Dakar, Ada loves Souleiman but has been promised to another man. One night, Souleiman and his co-workers leave the country by sea. Several days later, a fire ruins Ada's wedding and a mysterious fever starts to spread. It seems Souleiman has returned.
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Dilli Dark
Michael Okeke left Nigeria six years ago to survive in the frequently disconnecting and overcrowded New Delhi, which he despises heartily. He dreams of true love and a better job but is pushed into only the 4 Cs: cell phone, cocaine, cash, and clients.
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Tori and Lokita
Sharing a sibling-like bond, immigrants Lokita (17) and Tori (12) work as performers in a trattoria, dealing drugs on the side, while navigating an indifferent bureaucracy. When Lokita is held captive in a marijuana grow op, events spiral out of control.
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