Wednesday, March 5
Seattle Art Museum 7:30 PM

Waiting for Happiness (Heremakono) (2002, Mauritania, France, Mali In French and Hassanya with English subtitles 35mm, 95 minutes)
Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako.

This exquisitely filmed and dreamy portrait of a small desert town in the process of inevitable change centers on an inquisitive boy and a returning emigrant who has difficulty adjusting to the town’s slow traditional pace.

Winner of "Best Film Award" at the 31st Montreal International Film Festival, 2002

"Suggests a world of poignant contradictions, between immobility and departure, belonging and rootlessness, tradition and modernity, local culture and outside influence ...A poetic reflection on themes of exile, travel, home and displacement... beautifully composed images wash over the viewer."
-David Rooney, Variety

Still from Waiting for Happiness

Friday, March 7
Rainier Valley Cultural Center, 7:30PM
A Barber's Wisdom (2000, Nigeria, 26 minutes)
Directed by Amaka Igwe.
In this short farce, Amadou decides to modernize his barbershop to attract the younger generation and brings in his two daughters, provocatively dressed. He is not prepared for the consequences.

The White Handkerchief (2001, Nigeria, 17 minutes. U.S. premier)
Directed by Tunde Kelani.
Odejimi is marrying his childhood love Awero. When wedding customs are violated the community is in an uproar. This is a light-hearted film that challenges ideas of modernity.

Dôlé (Money) (200l, Gabon, In French with English subtitles 80 minutes)
Directed by Imunga Ivanga.
Dôlé opens with a group of young men venting their frustrations through the universal patois and rhythms of hip-hop. The film provides one of the most affectionate portraits of African youth poised precariously on the cusp of modernity. Mougler and his three friends abandon family and school for unrealistic paths out of poverty and obscurity.

Winner of first-place Gold Tanit at the 2000 Carthage Film Festival.

Saturday March 8
Rainier Valley Cultural Center. 1:00 PM

Presentations by Guest Directors

Guest Director Kibrom Tekeste, from Eritrea, will show his film Bricks of Peace (2001), portraying the Eritrean struggle for independence. Through interviews, archival and recent newsreel footage, this documentary chronicles fifty years of colonization, armed struggle and the Ethiopean-Eritrean conflict.

Kibrom Tekeste graduated from the SUNY, Buffalo School of Media. This is his first documentary. (90 min.)

Guest Director, Filmon Mebrahtu, also from Eritrea, is filming the lives of Sudanese refugees (so-called "Lost Boys") in Philadelphia. Funded in part by PBS, this story is the self-chronicle of five young Sudanese men. Mebrahtu will show excerpts from this work and his short film, "Stop Killing Taxi Drivers", which was recently acquired by Philadelphia Public TV for its Philadelphia Stories II series.

3:45PM
Directors Forum: Documenting the African Experience In the US and on the Continent

Participants: Filmon Mehbratu, Kibrom Tekeste, Hidaat Ephrem, Leigh Kimball, Kim Shelton.

Joining the Guest Directors for the panel discussion is Hidaat Ephrem, a well-known Eritrean writer, poet, activist and political essayist of the "Horn of Africa" conflict.

4:30PM (lower level)
Cultural Presentation by the Eritrean Community of Seattle

Among the thousands of Eritrean and Eritrean Americans living in the Northwest are Hidaat Ephrem, celebrated poet and writer, Yegizw Michael, painter and Aklilu Foto ("Tefeno"), legendary performer of the krar (string instrument).

Enjoy Eritean music, art, cuisine and a chance to meet the artists and directors.

5:00 PM (in the theater) Late Afternoon Program
Kafi's Story (1990, United Kingdom and Sudan In Nuba with English subtitles 56 minutes).
Produced by Arthur Howes and Amy Hardie
Kafi’s Story documents the Nuba civilization in Sudan before the devastation caused by the fundamentalist regime. Kafi leaves his village for Khartoum in order to purchase attire for his bride to be.

"Filmed with a remarkable intimacy, charm and self-awareness, Kafi’s Story is that rare film which provides an intricate sense of the dramas of everyday life." – Society for Visual Anthropology, Award of Commendation.

6PM.
Director and Co-producer, Kim Shelton and Leigh Kimball, Co-producer/Camera.

Guest Film-makers, Shelton and Kimball will show a segment from and discuss "A Great Wonder." This is the story of three young Sudanese refugees, now settled in Seattle, Martha, Abraham and Santino. They fled their burned villages in 1988, when their parents were killed, then walked to Ethiopia, arriving at a Kenyan refugee camp. Against a backdrop of memories and nightmares of war, they face a whole new set of challenges. Their resourcefulness and humor are inspiring.

Shelton’s works have been broadcast nationally, including PBS, and internationally, including BBC.

6:40PM
Nuba Conversations (2001, United Kingdom and Sudan In Nuba, Arabic and English with subtitles 55 minutes)
Produced and directed by Arthur Howes
Ten years after shooting Kafi’s Story filmmaker Arthur Howes returns to Sudan to find out what has happened to the Nuba of Torogi in the face of war. The Sudanese regime is pursuing its policy of forced Arabization through systematic disruption of the Nuba family. Howe visits a refugee camp and is finally able to show his film, Kafi’s Story, to a Nuba audience. The irony is that a film designed to show Nuba life to the rest of the world has, after ten years, become a way of showing the Nuba to themselves.

"An eye-opening account of a little-known humanitarian disaster... drawing attention to the plight of a people under real threat of cultural extinction." – Internationalist.

Saturday March 8
Rainier Valley Cultural Center. 8:00 PM.

Blue Sky (2000, Zimbabwe, 52 minutes)
Directed by Patrick Meunier
The three members of "The Cool Crooners" perform and reminisce about the heyday of African Jazz in the Bulawayo taverns of the 1950’s. Archival footage brings the era to life.

La Vie Est Belle (Life is Rosy) (1987, DemocraticRepublic of Congo/Belgium In French with English subtitles 85 minutes)
Directed by Ngangura Mweze and Benoit Lamyr
La Vie Est Belle takes us inside the vibrant music scene of Kinshasa, Congo’s exhilarating and exasperating capital, whose back alleys and clubs pulsate to the beat of some of the most influential music in the world. This lively farce, starring soukous music legend Papa Wemba, tells the "rags to riches" story of a poor country musician who seeks fame in the city’s music business.

Sunday March 9
Rainier Valley Cultural Center. 2:30 PM.

Death By Myth (Part 5 of A Kalahari Family) (2002, US, 90 minutes)
Directed by John Marshall
John Marshall has been documenting the life of the Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari Desert for the past fifty years. His last film is a message of hope and despair for the future of these people. Much of the aid that goes to the Ju/’hoansi depends on them behaving like the mythic "Bushmen" hunter-gatherers made famous in "The Gods Must be Crazy." In a changed world, this also means starvation.

Panel Discussion: Challenges of Aid to Africa
Participants to be announced

Wednesday, March 12
Seattle Art Museum 7:30 PM

Little Senegal (2000, Algeria, France, Germany In English and French 35mm, 98 minutes)
Directed by Rachid Bouchareb

Alloune has retired from his job as a guide at the slave embarkation quarters of Goree Island. He sets out on a journey to learn the fate of his ancestors, first in the American South and then in Harlem’s Little Senegal, home to old and new Africans in America.

Winner of Best Film, Cologne 2001, Grand Prix, Milan 2001.

Thursday, March 13
911 Media Arts Center

Short Films from Africa

Le Damier, Papa National Oye! (The Checkers Player) (1997, Democratic Republic of Congo 40 minutes)
Directed by Bakuya Kanyinda Balufu

A wicked political satire about a fictitious African country, A dictator encounters a pot-smoking, foul-mouthed "all-around checkers champion" who proceeds to beat the pants off the president. Can the tyrant withstand such a challenge to his power?

Winner: Best Short Film, Fespaco 1997.

Surrender (2000, Tanzania 26 minutes In Swahili with English subtitles)
Directed by Celine Gilbert

Amri, the son of a wealthy merchant, and Moshua, a poor fisherman, are inseparable friends. Amri’s father sees the friendship as a threat to social expectations and forces Amri into marriage. But some ties are not so easily broken.

"Surrender is a bold and ground-breaking tale....Celine Gilbert has created a luscious and beautiful portrait of courage, defiance and love" - Shari Frilot, Outfest

Fishers of Dar (Tanzania, 2002 37 minutes in English)
Lina Fruzzett, Akos Ostor and Stephen Ross

Fishers of Dar is about fishermen and women of Dar es Salaam. A visually lush documentary without commentary, the film takes the viewer, beginning before dawn, to the pier and the bustling central market, as hundreds of people make their living in this age-old way.

Steps for the Future (selections) (2001, South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe)
Various directors

This series of documentaries and short feature films was produced to educate the Southern African population about HIV/AIDS. Totaling 34 films in all, and produced by a European/African partnership, they bring a message of both health and hope to communities, many of which have the highest percentage of HIV positive people in the world.

Winner: Special Award by President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic for the greatest contribution to the protection of human rights.

"The stories are very different, some enlightening, some disturbing, some are tributes to life." - Mette Hoffman Meyer, TV2 Denmark

Friday, March 14
911 Media Arts Center

A repeat of Thursday's Short Films From Africa program at 911. Look under Thursday, March 13 at 911 Media Arts, for film descriptions and showtimes

Festival Sites, Addresses and Ticket info:

Seattle Art Museum
100 University St., Seattle
$6.00 SAM members
$7.00 non-members

Rainier Valley Cultural Center
3515 South Alaska St., Seattle (one block west of Rainier Avenue)
$6.00 each afternoon or evening
$9.00 all day Saturday

911 Media Arts Center
117 Yale Avenue North, Seattle
$5.00 911 members
$6.00 non-members

Credits Funded in part through a grant from Cultural Development Authority of King County. Events at SAM co-sponsored by the Seattle Art Museum and its African Arts Council Events at RVCC co-presented by SouthEast Effective Development 911 Media Arts Center, co-sponsor The Eritrean Community of Seattle

Driving directions to RVCC: The Rainier Valley Cultural Center is located at 3515 S. Alaska St., in south Seattle's Columbia City, just West of Rainier Avenue South at Alaska Street.

From I-5 take the Columbian Way exit. Follow Columbian Way as it curves left to become South Alaska Street. Proceed 4 blocks past Martin Luther King Jr. Way (located 1/2 block before Rainier Avenue). Or use Metro Routes #7, #39, and #48. .