The African Diaspora Film Festival and The Facets Cinémathèque are presenting The Seventh Annual Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival, which will be held at Facets from June 19-25. This outstanding event will feature a selection of Black Independent Films from around the world for the seventh consecutive year.
This one-week series will exhibit 11 films, including eight Chicago premieres. Five of the films, Naked Acts, Cape Verde My Love, Paloma Delight, Family Motel and Patterns of Passion are centered on women from the USA, Algeria, Cape Verde, and Somalia, some looking inwards, others looking outwards, but who all share the common urge of fighting for a better life. The other six films set in Haiti, Cuba, Senegal, Nigeria, the US and Brazil, explore how history is connected to today’s reality. The African Diaspora Film Festival is an eclectic mix of foreign, independent, classic and urban films representing the global Black experience through an extraordinary range of subjects and artistic approaches.
The Opening Night film is:
GLORIOUS EXIT
Jarreth Merz, a Swiss-Nigerian actor living in Los Angeles is summoned to Nigeria to bury his father. According to Nigerian tradition, the first-born is in charge of a father’s burial. But who is this father? Although Jarreth accepts the responsibility, he struggles with why he feels morally bound towards a family whom he hardly knows and who has never been particularly interested in him? Thus starts a journey of self-discovery.
Directed by Kevin Merz, Nigeria/US/Switzerland
2008, BetaSP
75mins, documentary in English and German with English subtitles.
Winner “Festival Real Life” Accra 2008.
This Opening Night screening and preceding catered reception sponsored by the Center for Black Diaspora DePaul University and the Consulate General of Switzerland in Chicago.
Showtimes:
Opening Night Catered Reception Fri., June 19 at 6 pm
screening Fri., June 19 at 7 pm
Wed., June 24 at 9 pm
Created in 1993 by ArtMattan Productions, a company that produces a collection of programs and events promoting Afrocentric theme cultures, ADFF has long been delighting audiences with U.S. and world premieres of independent films, including features, documentaries, animation, and shorts.
