Doc Watchers & African Film Festival Inc. present:

Friday, May 4th - Monday, May 7th

Friday, May 4, 2012                        7:00 PM

Yoole, The Sacrifice

Directed by Moussa Sene Absa

2010 / 75 mins / Barbados & Senegal

In April 2004, a boat was found in Barbados with eleven dead bodies on board; the boat had left Senegal bound for Europe four months earlier. Absa, lecturing in Barbados at the time, decided to go home to Senegal to explore the lives of the men found on the boat.

Saturday, May 5, 2012            3:30 PM

Africa the Beat

Director: Samaki Wanne

2011 / 60 min / Spain

Filmed in Nzali, an enclave situated in the heart of Tanzania where the Wagogo live, this film captures and reveals this unique musical universe. From the film’s first frame to the last sound heard, each image takes us further into their daily reality while their music gradually engulfs us in a world of surprising sensations.

Saturday, May 5, 2012            5:00 PM

Africa Shafted: Under One Roof

Directed by Ingrid Martens

2011 / 55 min / South Africa

Filmed in the Ponte, Africa's tallest residential apartment building, which is home to more than 4000 people from every corner of Africa. This is not your everyday film. The film allows the viewer to be a fly on the wall, and intimately interact face to face with Africa. This serious, poignant, humorous, and uplifting film reveals the courage, heart, hope, beauty and stories of daily struggles of Africans from the rest of the continent living in South Africa today.

Where Do I Stand?

Directed by Molly Blank

2010 / 38 min. / South Africa

Where Do I Stand? is a window into the lives of seven young people who are thinking deeply about their actions, their communities, and the state of their country during and after xenophobic attacks broke out across South Africa in May 2008.

Saturday, May 5, 2012            7:00 PM

The Unseen Ones

Directed by Kurt Orderson

20 min / South Africa

A musical documentary film that centers around 27-year old Leagan Davids, aka Nico10long, a dispossessed youth from the township Wesbank/Delft struggling against the high crime rate, substandard schooling and unemployment on the Cape Flats while trying to raise his three-year daughter, Allevia.

(Filmmaker present for post-screening Q&A.)

The Dance of King David

Directed by Axel Baumann

33 min / Ethiopia & Israel

The film is based on a dance King David performed in front of the Ark over 3000 years ago and which is still practiced today during the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah and the festival of Timkat in Ethiopia. The film is a beautiful journey through the ancient and modern worship of this object.

(Filmmaker present for post-screening Q&A.)

The Prodigal Son

Directed by Kurt Orderson

2009 / 64min / South Africa, USA, Barbados & St. Vincent

The Prodigal Son retraces the lost history of the Orderson family. The filmmaker’s great grandfather, Joseph Orderson was of the generation of newly emancipated slaves, who with fellow West Indians left Barbados to settle all over the world, including Cape Town’s District Six. These men came as sailors and were part of the pioneering Black Atlantic Communication Network, inspired by Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.

(Filmmaker present for post-screening Q&A.)

11 African Docs at Maysles Cinema

Screening Location:  Maysles Cinema (In Harlem) 

343 Lenox Avenue (between 127th & 128th Streets)

Suggested Donation

Sunday, May 6, 2012                        3:30 PM

Ayen's Cooking School for African Men

Directed by Sieh Mchawala

2007 / 52 min / Sudan & Austrailia

In Sudan it is taboo for a man to cook. What happens when a Sudanese woman starts a cooking school for the Sudanese refugee men in Australia and asks them to prepare a feast for their biggest critics, the elder women?

Sunday, May 6, 2012                        5:15 PM

Our Beloved Sudan

Directed by Taghreed Elsanhouri

2011 / 92 mins / Sudan

Our Beloved Sudan documents the political destiny of the Sudanese nation; from its birth in 1956 to its eventual partition in 2011. Juxtaposing a personal narrative with a larger social commentary, the filmmaker seeks to understand how the world reached the inevitable conclusion of Sudan’s partition, and the Sudanese people’s coming to terms with the events.

(Filmmaker present for post-screening Q&A.)

Sunday, May 6, 2012                        7:30 PM

Fire In Babylon

Directed by Stevan Riley

2010 / 83 min / United Kingdom

Throughout the Caribbean, one sport rules over all others—cricket. Comprised of players from 15 countries, the West Indies cricket team rose to preeminence throughout the 1970s despite civil unrest at home and racial prejudice abroad. When Clive Lloyd assumed the team’s captaincy, he transformed a laughingstock into world champions. Fire in Babylon is the thrilling story of how the West Indies triumphed over their colonial masters through the achievements of one of the most gifted teams in sporting history.

Monday, May 7, 2012                        7:00 PM

The Education Of Auma Obama

Directed by Branwen Okpako

2011 / 79 mon / Germany

Branwen Okpako’s The Education of Auma Obama is a captivating and intimate portrait of the U.S. president’s older half-sister, who embodies a post-colonial, feminist identity. An academic overachiever, she studied linguistics and contemporary dance in Heidelberg, Germany, before enrolling in film school in Berlin, where she met Nigerian-born director Okpako in the nineties.