Film & Television

African Film Festival Streams Short Films

  • Streaming ends on Jan 5
As part of end of the year celebrations and to usher in the new year,  the African Film Festival is showcasing South African filmmaker, Dumisani Phakathi. Three of his compelling short films are currently available for streaming on Cinema Awujo until January 5. These include Christmas with Granny, An Old Wife’s Tale and Waiting for Valdez.

Dumisani Phakathi, aka Malo 8, is a Soweto-born director of television, films and commercials. He began making movies at the age of sixteen. After matriculating in 1993 at Phafogang High School in Soweto, he went to work at Die Beeld, Gauteng’s leading Afrikaans newspaper. He proved too gregarious for a newsroom and joined TV Production Company – Urban Brew – as a trainee director. A year later he conceptualized The Electric Workshop, the funky youth actuality program that went on to run for five successful years. Phakathi has collaborated with notable media organizations BBC, Arte and TV2 Denmark. He has received additional praise including a special mention at Toronto Film Festival, a Forum Selection at Berlin Film Festival and a Best Director award at Montecatini Film Festival.

Waiting for Valdez, a short film produced for MNET, garnered a great deal of support and attention early on in his career. Some of Phakathi’s other works include An Old Wife’s Tale and Don’t F*** with Me, I Have 51 Brothers and Sisters(2005). In 2008, his Nocturnal Fragments, a collaboration between Pat Mautloa and Phakathi, which consists of digital stills that Phakathi made with his video camera turned into fine art prints, some of which have additional pastel work by Mautloa, were shown at Johannesburg’s new Resolution Gallery of Digital Art.

Committed to telling diverse stories and uplifting voices of storytellers from Africa, the African Film Festival is set to continue with its community-building, cultural enrichment and retain its platform for projecting underrepresented narratives.
Since 1990, African Film Festival (AFF) has bridged the divide between post-colonial Africa and the American public through the medium of film. AFF’s unique place in the international arts community distinguished not only by leadership in festival management but by a comprehensive approach to the advocacy of African and diaspora film and culture. Launched in 1993, the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) is an annual cultural staple by the African Film Festival Inc. and Film at Lincoln Centre in Association with Brooklyn Academy of Music.
AFF also produces a series of local, national and international programmes throughout the year.

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