121 films later… another installment of the Pan African Film Festival (Paff) in Los Angeles, CA, came to a close on Wednesday, the 23rd, with the announcement of its filmmaker awards.
Prizes were handed out for the following categories: Best Narrative Feature, Best First Feature Film, Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, and Audience Favorite awards.
I was extremely pleased to see João Daniel Tikhomiroff’s Besouro win the Best Narrative Feature prize. It’s a film we’ve touted on this blog for the last 2 years, since initially hearing about it. The film is still without North American distribution, as far as I know, and it needs all the press and push it can get. I hope it’s eventually picked up – even if it’s a straight-to-dvd release.
Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow received the well-deserved Best First Feature Film award.
And the Jamie Foxx-executive produced Thunder Soul,...
Prizes were handed out for the following categories: Best Narrative Feature, Best First Feature Film, Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, and Audience Favorite awards.
I was extremely pleased to see João Daniel Tikhomiroff’s Besouro win the Best Narrative Feature prize. It’s a film we’ve touted on this blog for the last 2 years, since initially hearing about it. The film is still without North American distribution, as far as I know, and it needs all the press and push it can get. I hope it’s eventually picked up – even if it’s a straight-to-dvd release.
Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow received the well-deserved Best First Feature Film award.
And the Jamie Foxx-executive produced Thunder Soul,...
- 2/25/2011
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Davey Frankel and Rasselas Lakew's "Atletu" took home high honors from the 7th annual Bahamas International Film Festival over the weekend. The Ethiopian sports drama about former Olympic Gold Medal winner Abebe Bikila won the Spirit of Freedom (Narrative) competition and was also named as the recipient of the Festival's Audience Award for best feature narrative. The Israeli-American documentary "Budrus," from director Julia Bacha, won the Spirit of Freedom prize ...
- 12/6/2010
- Indiewire
This year for the first time in history, an Ethiopian film, The Athlete aka Atletu (Isa: Arrow), has been submitted to the Academy for consideration for the Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. Over the years, the Best Foreign Language Film Award has been given almost exclusively to European films: out of the 62 awards handed out by the Academy since 1947 to foreign language films, fifty-one have gone to European films, five to Asian films, three to films from the Americas, and three to African films (1969 Z from Algeria directed by Costa Gavras who is French, 1976…...
- 11/25/2010
- Sydney's Buzz
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yesterday, issued a press release listing all of their Best Foreign Language film submissions, from at least 65 countries.
Here’s the trailer for one of them which was uploaded today – an Ethiopian film covered on S&A last year, Atletu (Athlete), described as: “unique and elegant hybrid of autobiography, biopic and documentary tells the inspiring story of the great Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who in 1960 became the first African athlete to win gold at the Olympics – a new world record, and barefoot at that. Then four years later in Tokyo, he did it all again… this time wearing shoes. And at age 32, Abebe Bikila became the first man to win consecutive marathons at the Olympics. Bikila’s story took a shocking turn after these triumphs, yet nothing could keep him from pursuing his dreams all the way to the finish line...
Here’s the trailer for one of them which was uploaded today – an Ethiopian film covered on S&A last year, Atletu (Athlete), described as: “unique and elegant hybrid of autobiography, biopic and documentary tells the inspiring story of the great Ethiopian marathon runner Abebe Bikila, who in 1960 became the first African athlete to win gold at the Olympics – a new world record, and barefoot at that. Then four years later in Tokyo, he did it all again… this time wearing shoes. And at age 32, Abebe Bikila became the first man to win consecutive marathons at the Olympics. Bikila’s story took a shocking turn after these triumphs, yet nothing could keep him from pursuing his dreams all the way to the finish line...
- 10/14/2010
- by Wale
- ShadowAndAct
More than three decades after many Ethiopians left their country for exile, there is now a small but mighty handful of films exploring the experience of this diaspora
It is a truism that – agitprop and now tribunal plays aside – it takes quite some time for traumatic events, personal or political, to filter into a culture. Distance is key; time for healing, for perspective, for the discovery of an appropriate idiom. A few years, at least; 10 years. A lifetime.
But how much more complicated, how much slower the process, when it is combined with immigration across continents and languages. There are so often such great wounds – if the trauma was enough to cause people to flee across borders, leave family and friends, survive refugee camps, then healing will be a slow business. Add that to the basic facts of getting by: a new culture, a new language, the subsidiary damage of...
It is a truism that – agitprop and now tribunal plays aside – it takes quite some time for traumatic events, personal or political, to filter into a culture. Distance is key; time for healing, for perspective, for the discovery of an appropriate idiom. A few years, at least; 10 years. A lifetime.
But how much more complicated, how much slower the process, when it is combined with immigration across continents and languages. There are so often such great wounds – if the trauma was enough to cause people to flee across borders, leave family and friends, survive refugee camps, then healing will be a slow business. Add that to the basic facts of getting by: a new culture, a new language, the subsidiary damage of...
- 11/11/2009
- by Aida Edemariam
- The Guardian - Film News
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