Ude confirmed the dates at the festival’s program launch and media parley at Alliance Française de Lagos, Ikoyi, Lagos.
“Filmmaking has evolved rapidly in Africa over the last two decades and this year’s edition is designed to influence global perspectives of African films and storytelling. We intend to continue to empower our storytellers to explore ideologies and techniques that appeal to a larger global audience,” said Ude.
Buttressing her point, the festival director detailed that that AFRIFF is designed to explore new-age technical frontiers in film production, with a focus on the use of sound and visuals in the making of award-winning short, feature, documentary and animation films in Africa for a global audience while hinting that the speakers of the 11th edition would be mostly senior executives in the film production and distribution industry from the Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, U.K. and U.S. who will also aid in projecting avenues to showcase the best of attending filmmakers and their films to the international community.
As part of foremost activities at this year’s festival, Chioma Ude announced the continuing collaboration with Prime Video and Amazon Studios while introducing Nanny as the Opening Night Film of the festival.
The 2022 Sundance Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner follows Aisha (Anna Diop), a migrant from Senegal in West Africa, who is hired to care for the daughter of an affluent couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) living in New York City.
Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind, Aisha hopes her new job will afford her the chance to bring him to the U.S but becomes increasingly unsettled by the family’s volatile home life. As his arrival approaches, a violent presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality, threatening the American dream she is painstakingly piecing together.
The festival’s closing film is Toka Mcbaror’s Almajiri. The film follows Nafisat and Salihu, two young children who are separated from their parents from childhood by the cruel business of Alhaji Makarfi. The gullible villagers believe him, love him and even revere him more than the chiefs in the North. He is showered with gifts, praise, and bribes just to get their wards enlisted for his scholarship scheme, unknown to them, none of their children ever gets to see the wall of a school let alone have the liberty of pursuing a trade. They are beaten, brainwashed, and forced to become prostitutes, suicide bombers and Almajiris.
