Akindele made her acting debut in the TV series, I Need to Know (1998-2002) and shot to fame with her role in the comedy-drama film Jenifa (2008) which earned her her first Africa Movie Academy Award (AMVCA) for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The film’s popularity spawned a sequel (2011) as well as a spin-off TV series (2014) Jenifa’s Diary.
In 2019 she made her feature film directorial debut with the political satire, Your Excellency. Sixteen years after her first AMVCA win, Akindele remains the most nominated actress/filmmaker at the AMVCA, and with six awards, is the actress with the most wins.
In 2022 Akindele announced she was suspending her film career to be the running mate to Olajide Adediran, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the governorship of Lagos. The Adediran-Akindele ticket lost in the May 2023 elections to the incumbent. Seven months later, Akindele made Nollywood history with A Tribe Called Judah.
The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) (Arabic: مهرجان القاهرة السينمائي الدولي) is an annual film festival held at the Cairo Opera House. Established in 1976 by the Egyptian Association of Film Writers and Critics it is one of the oldest in the Arab world and Africa, and is the only festival in the region given category “A” status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF).
The creation of the festival was prompted by a visit to the Berlin Film Festival in 1975 by the writer-critic Kamal El Mallakh and a group of like-minded cinema critics who questioned why a similar world-class festival didn’t exist in Egypt. The country was still in Egyptian cinema's "Golden Age" and its film industry the biggest in the Arab world. The festival offers cash prizes and awards in various categories.
The highest award endowed is the Golden Pyramid Award for Best Picture. The Silver and Bronze Pyramid awards are given for the Best Director and Best New Director, respectively. Recent Golden Pyramid winners include I’m No Longer Here (2019) and Limbo (2020). The 45th edition of the film festival in 2023 was canceled due to the Israel-Hamas war.
Heart of the Hunter a South African thriller based on the novel by the same name by South African writer Deon Meyer premiered on 29th March on Netflix. Within its first week it took the #1 spot in Netflix’s global ranking. Directed by Mandlakayise Dube of Silverton Siege and starring Bonko Khoza, Connie Furgeson, and Masasa Mbangeni the film is set in post democratic South Africa and follows one man’s mission to thwart a corrupt politician’s bid for the presidential seat.
April 18 is Zimbabwe’s National Independence Day. Check out Neria 21 (2024), a film directed by Trust Sayi and recently released in its entirety on YouTube. The drama is a remake of the classic Zimbabwean film Neria (1994) based on the eponymous novel by Tsitsi Dangarembga and directed by Godwin Mawuru. It became the highest-grossing film in Zimbabwean history.
The Festival Films Femmes d’Afrique takes place April 26-May 4 in Dakar and in various regions of Senegal from May 5-10. Established in 2013, the festival celebrates films that document the stories of African women. Films in competition this year include Banal et Adama by Ramata Toulaye Sy, Twenty Years Later by Moussa Touré, and Big Little Women, a documentary by Nadia Fares.
The Nollywood Centre at the Pan-Atlantic University’s School of Media and Communications Studies is hosting a “Film Financing in the Nigerian Film Industry: Opportunities, Challenges and Prospects” on April 20 in Lagos. Attendance is free but registration is required.
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The film uses a blend of fact and fiction to tell the story and emphasizes the symbolic value of the artifacts to the Kingdom of Dahomey. The film includes a discussion by students at the University of Abomey-Calavi, presenting their views on the repatriation of cultural assets. Some of the students criticize the Paris museum for returning only 26 of the 7,000 worldwide ethnographic objects it holds.
In her acceptance speech Diop said “To rebuild we must first restore, and to restitute we must do justice..We are among those who refuse to forget”. The film is scheduled for theatrical release in France on 25 September 2024..
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Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o made history as the first Black person to head the Berlin International Film Festival jury on the occasion of its 74th edition in February 2024. Commonly known as the Berlinale, it is among the most prestigious film festivals in the world.
The South African 2019 political documentary How to Steal a Country is being used in German high schools to teach students about corruption. The film revolves around state capture in South Africa and revelations of alleged corruption scandals surrounding former President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family.
Supa Team 4 is Netflix’s first original African animated series, now in its second season. Taking place in a futuristic Lusaka, the Zambian series was created and co-executive-produced by Zambian writer Malenga Mulendema and produced by South African animation studio Triggerfish.
The video for the song "Take Me to Your Leader" by American rock band Incubus pays homage to The Gods Must Be Crazy, a 1980 South African comedy film that was the most successful South African film at the time. Set in Southern Africa, the film revolves around a hunter-gatherer of the Kalahari Desert whose tribe believes that a Coca-Cola bottle dropped from a plane is a gift from their gods.
Raja Amari (b. 4 April, 1971) is an award-winning Tunisian film director and scriptwriter whose works often center on female protagonists. Her best-known films include Red Satin (2002), Foreign Body (2016) and Buried Secrets (2016). Her most recent film is the documentary “She Had a Dream” (2020) which follows a Black Tunisian activist running for office in the 2019 legislative elections. In addressing the issue of racism and sexism in contemporary Tunisia in the film, Amari said “I also wanted to tell the story of Black women in Tunisia, because I felt they are somehow forgotten.”
Nabil Ayouch (b. 1 April, 1969) is a French-Moroccan director, screenwriter and producer. His films include Horses of God (2012) a drama about the 2003 Casablanca bombings and Morocco’s submission for the Best International Film at the Oscars, and Casablanca Beats (2021) centered around a group of young Moroccans who find their passion in hip-hop. It was the first Moroccan film to compete for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, The Blue Caftan which he co-wrote with his director-wife Maryam Touzani was shortlisted for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
Samuel Bazawule (b, 19 April 1982), known professionally as Blitz Bazawule and Blitz the Ambassador, is a Ghanaian filmmaker, author, visual artist, rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer. Blitz made his debut as a film director debut with The Burial of Kojo (2018), which won Best First Feature Film by a Director at the 15th Africa Movie Academy Awards and the Grand Nile Prize at the Luxor African Film Festival. He directed the musical film adaptation The Color Purple in 2023 and is currently developing a six-episode miniseries based on his novel The Scent of Burnt Flowers about an African American fugitive couple seeking refuge in Ghana.
"As a writer, I’m always fascinated by small stories told with a giant heart...My aim is to give voice to ”voiceless” and ”invisible" people that never get acknowledged or appreciated for their contributions by the societies because they seem to have less or because they’re not ”worth it”. So, for me, it was really important to help this small family in Djibouti have their voice heard by the world, so that many people in many different parts of the world can connect with them or relate and go « Ah, yes, so we’re not the only ones »"
Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, Director of The Gravedigger’s Wife
Goodbye Julia (Arabic: وداعا جوليا, romanized: Wadāʻan Jūlyā) is a 2023 Sudanese drama directed by Mohamed Kordofani set against a backdrop of events that led to the South Sudanese 2011 referendum for independence from the North.
A story about two women who represent the complicated relationship and differences between northern and southern Sudanese communities, it is the first movie from Sudan ever to be presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.
The film was shot in 40 days in November and December of 2022, while the musical score by popular Sudanese musician Mazin Hamid was recorded under tight deadline in Khartoum when war broke out in April 2023. Kordofani said that the film’s soundtrack, which includes numerous songs from South Sudan and North Sudan was intended to reflect Sudan’s shared culture and ties. It includes a song from the late northern songwriter Sayed Khalifa, as well as an original track that closes the film.
In adapting his books to film, Mourad said: “The reading audience, which represents two percent of the Egyptian society, is not the same as the cinema audience, which represents 35-40 percent of the Egyptian people. I need to be aware of the required criteria [for adaptation], and I need to view the text as something that is not sacred, susceptible to criticism — change and tweaking to fit the cinema”.
The movie features Karim Abdel Aziz, Khaled El Sawy, and Nelly Karim, among Egypt’s biggest film stars, and follows a troubled psychiatrist who returns to his post at a psychiatric hospital after 5 years following the death of his wife and daughter. Discovering that a patient and old friend is accused of murdering his wife, Yehia becomes enmeshed in a tangled web of mystery as he tries to save his friend and in the process, himself. The film was a box-office success in Egypt and the Arab region and its 2019 sequel Blue Elephant 2 went on to become the highest-grossing film in Egypt. In 2023 Mourad confirmed that a third installment of the franchise was in development.
