Ude confirmed the dates at the festival program launch and press conference at Alliance Française de Lagos, Ikoyi, Lagos.
“Cinema has evolved rapidly in Africa over the past two decades and this year’s edition is designed to influence global perspectives on African films and narratives. We intend to continue training our storytellers to explore ideologies and techniques that will appeal to a larger global audience.” Ude said.
Reinforcing her point, the festival director explained that AFRIFF is designed to explore the technical frontiers of the new era in film production, with a focus on the use of sound and images in the making of short films, feature films, documentaries and feature films. award-winning animation in Africa for a global audience while hinting that the 11th edition’s speakers will be predominantly senior executives from the film production and distribution industry from Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, the UK and the US. that will also help project ways to show the best of bringing filmmakers and their films to the international community.
As part of the main activities of this year’s festival, Chioma Ude announced the continuation of the collaboration with Prime Video and Amazon Studios and presented Baby sister as the opening night film of the festival.
The winner of the 2022 Sundance Drama Grand Jury Prize follows Aisha (Anna Diop), a migrant from Senegal in West Africa, who is hired to care for the daughter of a well-to-do couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) living in the New York City.
Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind, Aisha hopes her new job will give her the chance to bring him to the US, but the family’s volatile home life makes her increasingly restless. As her arrival draws closer, a violent presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality, threatening the American dream she is painstakingly rebuilding.
The closing film of the festival is that of Toka Mcbaror Almajiri. The film follows Nafisat and Salihu, two young boys who are separated from their parents since childhood by Alhaji Makarfi’s cruel business. The credulous villagers believe him, love him and even venerate him more than the caciques of the North. He is showered with gifts, compliments and bribes just to get his wards to sign up for his scholarship scheme, unbeknownst to them none of his children ever see a school wall let alone have the freedom to pursue a trade . They are beaten, brainwashed and forced to become prostitutes, suicide bombers and almajiris.
