The 2007 African Film Festival was declared open last Friday by the South African Ambassador to Ireland, Priscilla Jana.In her speech at Cineworld on Dublin’s Parnell St, Jana said that the event would bring together Africans, other ethnic communities and the Irish in the spirit of Africa.
She commeded the film festival as an expression of ubuntu – an African view on humanity best interpreted as ‘I am human because you are, without you I am not.’
Emeka Mathew Ezeani, of the Ikenga group in Ireland, who organised the festival said it is a way of expressing the multicultural nature of Ireland.
The impact of the film festival on the African community, according to Ezeani, is not only to motivate Africans to be role models in Ireland but to encourage Africans here to participate actively in African and international issues.
He thanked the visiting African actors and actresses who scarified some of their international engagements in order to be in Dublin.
The festival, which ran at Cineworld from 20–22 April, featured films such as Flame (a Zimbabwean film on the struggle for independence directed by Ingrid Sinclair), Son of Man, Forgiveness, The Concubine, Moolaade, Le Grande Voyage, Warrior’s Heart, and Across the Niger.
In future both Cineworld and Irish Film Institute in Dublin will be screening African films on a regular basis.
