“Africa is full of talent. This series bears witness to this… When we launched our call for projects, which aimed to produce short films revisiting the cultural heritage of the continent’s traditional tales, we did not expect to receive so many scenarios. “Presenting in Paris, on March 15, the series of short films co-produced by Netflix and Unesco, Tendeka Matatu said that he had received more than 2,000 scripts. “It was not easy to select only six”, recognizes the director of the African subsidiary of the video on demand platform.
To support the initiative led by Netflix, the international organization has mobilized an envelope of just over 600,000 euros to “start” this series. A $25,000 prize was awarded to each of the six finalists from Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The institution has also contributed to the financing of each film to the tune of 75,000 dollars.
Visible today in 190 countries, these short films are preparing to compete in several African competitions, starting with the sixth edition of the Kalasha International Film which begins in Nairobi on Wednesday March 29. The selected works are extremely diverse.
In Zabin Halima (Halima’s Choice), Nigerian Korede Azeez offers nothing less than a sci-fi film. It transports us to the 22nd century in a traditional Fulani village which resists the giants of the Net, which offer the inhabitants an almost entirely virtualized life.
With Anyango and the Ogre (Anyango et l’Ogre), the Kenyan Voline Ogutu evokes, under cover of a children’s story, the ravages of intra-family violence. In Katera of the Punishment Island, Loukman Ali discusses how single mothers have long been treated in his native Uganda.
With Katope, Walt Mzengi Corey evokes the magic rituals used by village communities in rural areas of Tanzania to attract rain. A way of recalling, in hollow, the serious problems of drought that global warming is weighing on a large part of Africa.
The fantasy genre gives rise to a wonderful (but also terrifying, let’s face it) Mauritanian short film: Enmity Djinn, by Mohamed Echkouna, where the same family faces an evil spirit from the desert over three generations.
And in MaMlambo, South African Gcobisa Yako takes us along “the river of no return” which gives its title to her film to meet a mysterious woman: half-fairy, half-witch.
So many little cinematographic gems which, despite some clumsiness at times, make us discover little-known parts of African culture.
