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Every Friday at 7pm:
Amakula Film Screenings
The whole year around and free of charge!
Also, two Wednesdays each month film professionals present and discuss
their work.
To receive regular information about the programme send an email
to 
requesting to be added to the emailing list. |
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March
15, 2008
Golden Impala Eastern Africa Short Film Award
Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2008
Call for submissions of Short Films from
Eastern Africa to be entered into a competition during the
Amakula Kampala International Film Festival that will take place
from the 1st to 11th of May, 2007 in Kampala, Uganda.
Films short-listed from all submitted works will be shown at the
Festival. During the festival an international jury will award
the best Eastern African short with the Golden Impala Award
For more information click  here or send an email to
info@amakula.com. |
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PARALLEL UNIVERSE |
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We are honoured to present
the 5th edition of the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival
for May 1 to 11, 2008.
This 10-day free festival will continue to provide an exposition of the many approaches to cinema from around the world while simultaneously offering practical workshops, seminars and lectures by regional and international filmmakers in order to stimulate ideas as well as gather the technical skills to execute them here in East Africa.
The festival will continue its special focus on African cinema which is so rarely seen in Uganda, while making a point of actively seeking out the nascent East-African film industry. By creating regional programmes and by continuing to create a network of individuals and organizations the festival hopes to become a platform to inspire a film culture in Uganda and the region.
Festival Theme
This 5th edition of the festival is guided by the theme of Parallel
Universe. As each theme that guides the Amakula festival is
connected both to the history of cinema as much as to African realities,
so it is with this theme.
Parallel Universe now continues precisely where the previous
theme of Travels, Transit left off, confronting the modern
divided Africa with the new realities of Globalism. But, beyond
this, a more substantial concept is seen here in terms of African
culture: the curious nature of African duality in contemporary life
as it is witnessed in society, politics, religion and art; that
is, the instance of living simultaneously in two spaces at once-a
traditional African world and a Westernized global world, a world
of traditional beliefs and a world of Christian values, the old
village or the new urban space, ultimately a world to escape or
a world to create. Parallel Universe also celebrates the
essential diversity of Africa where all peoples relish the comparison
of similarities and differences between tribal cultures.
This also remains one of the great aspects of world cinema: the
way it bridges these parallel worlds for us by allowing us an entry
to other cultures, lifestyles and understandings. We now live daily
with a sense of a parallel universe in which all things co-exist.
The cinema has always provided that magic mirror to us and every
time we watch a film we confront this alternate reality even if
it is depicting the very local reality which we may know. The film
festival itself, by its very nature, is a collection of parallel
universes, which all for a short time entice the spectator into
their particular geography and preoccupations. In this way the theme
of Parallel Universe teaches tolerance of others' lifestyle
and culture by stressing equivalent difference.
It should be recalled that the phrase Parallel Cinema which
was originally used in India to describe the wave of committed cinema
exemplified in the work of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, would become
generally borrowed with regard to what was later categorized as
third world or third stream cinema but is now known as the Cinema
of the South. This notion of parallel reality clearly has a host
of implications in Africa, all worthy of closer critical scrutiny.
As usual the festival will attempt to provide a platform for the
expression of parallel universes through the art of storytelling
and performance which will feature a variety of artists and speakers
who will be invited to express themselves in sundry ways-song, dance,
speech and spoken word. The theme of Parallel Universe
will also provide a unique lens with which to focus on key facets
in the growth of African cinema as well as an important collective
vision of the natural tendencies and progress of world cinema in
a typically broad ranging program of screenings. As a centerpiece
the festival will present a symposium on global and local realities
of Africa discussing the position of Africa, and Uganda in specific,
in the contemporary redefinition and restructuring of a global world.
Parallel Universe is a theme
which, it is hoped, will inspire many with the importance of a resilient
and intrinsic culture both to a build a stronger society locally
as well as create a more powerful podium to speak to the rest of
the world from and be recognized as distinct and vital. This 4th
edition of the festival is guided by the theme of Travels, Transit.
As each theme that guides the Amakula festival is connected both
to the history of cinema as much as to African realities, so it
is with this theme.
Locations
Amakula Kampala will continue to surprise Ugandans by offering unusual programmes in unusual sites throughout the city. A special feature of Amakula Kampala is its determination to seek its audiences in their local surroundings, offering a wide range of film screenings over the course of ten days in diverse locations in Kampala.
While the festival during its ten
days will be centered in the National Theater (including the green
room and all surrounding spaces), selections of films will be shown
in Luganda translations in thirty video halls around town. Special
programmes will be designed for children and youth in collaboration
with educational institutions in advance of and during the festival.
The Amakula Mobile Cinema will be
seen around town offering impromptu film screenings in outdoor locations.
It will offer film programmes to schools and community organisations
and several times a year will be touring showing films in villages
and towns around the country.
Programme
The film programme will consist of contemporary film from all over the world as well as a selection of film classics chosen with particular relevance to the festival’s theme. On offer will be a broad selection of historic and contemporary African films that provide a good context for understanding African cinema and within that a special focus on East African cinema. Many film directors will be present to introduce their films and engage in discussions.
Competition
The
Golden Impala Eastern
Africa Short Film Award will be given each year to the winner
of the competition for short film and video productions from Eastern
Africa. The festival will invite submissions before March 15,
2008 from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia,
Malawi, Mozambique, Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and
Eritrea, that will be reviewed by an international jury during the
festival.
Workshops, Seminars and Lectures
Amakula Kampala places great importance on creating a platform of exchange by providing workshops, seminars and lectures on practical and theoretical aspects of film production and discussions focusing on important issues of the day. These programmes will be hosted by local, regional and international directors and producers with whom audiences will have the opportunity to meet. Workshops will be organized in advance as well as during the festival. A regular festival event is the Annual Congress on East-African Cinema and a symposium around the theme of the festival, while each year three filmmakers are invited to give master classes on their work.
Multi-disciplinary Events
We have established the goal to inspire experiment and collaborations between different artistic disciplines and the moving image to enhance an active critical/cultural field driven by strong independent ideas. Highlighted festival programmes will include musicians providing accompaniment for several silent film classics or collaborating with video makers; dancers and choreographers to work with multi-media visual approaches, and visual artists to create unique multi-media work or design collaboratively within other media. The festival will be accompanied by an arts exhibition as suggested by the festival's theme.
We welcome you all to celebrate the fifth edition of the Amakula
Kampala International Film Festival with us at the opening on May
1, 2008.
Don't miss it!
The Amakula Festival team.
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