Africa: Movie Stars Awarded at 8th African Film Festival Of Tarifa

By Staff Writer

TARIFA--8th African Film Festival of Tarifa (FCAT – Festival de Cine Africano de Tarifa) awarded eight new African movies with awards endowed with 46 500 euros celebrated from 11th to 19th June in Andalusian town Tarifa.

The festival jury selected winners from more than 140 movies from 23 African countries.

It was accompanied among others by 3rd Africa Produce Forum, where 10 African filmmakers competed with their projects to get funding from European producers including representatives of Al-Jazeera Docuemntary Channel. The winning projects will be announced soon.

The award for the best feature-length movie (15 000 €) went to “MICROPHONE” (Ahmad Abdalla, Egypt)for its energy and shedding of light on the potential of the new Egypt and also because it reflects the role of art in political and social change.

“A JAMA” (Daoud Aoulad-Syad, Morocco/France) captured two awards one for the best direction (10 000 €)  for its naturalistic use of non-professional actors. Furthermore, the film found a way to speak about the taboo topic of religion with sensitivity and humour. The second was the SIGNIS award for the best fiction feature film for its humorous look at injustice and corruption and for showing the courage and determination of a simple man who stands up to all who stand in his way in order to defend his rights and denounce the abuse of power by politicians and false prophets.

9 categories of the 8 short listed African movies were awarded.

The event said to be one of the biggest European festival of African cinema, welcomed over 200 African filmmakers including legendary African director Moustapha Alassane and focuses among others on African Diaspore in Latin America, the role of cinema in recent revolutions in Tunis and Egypt or restrospective of Congolese cinematography.

FCAT is an independent and competitive film festival and one of the biggest African film festivals in Europe.