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Africa International Film Festival To Hold In 2021
There are indications that the 2021 edition of Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) will hold this year following entry calls for the 10th edition, which is themed ‘Africans For Africa’. Entries from all parts of the world in all film categories and genre opened on March 25 and will run until July 1. The statement by AFRIFF indicates that filmmakers are to send in their entries through www.filmfreeway.com/AFRIFF. It will be recalled that 2020, which was scheduled to hold in November 2020, was cancelled. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AFRIFF, Chioma Ude, disclosed in a statement that the AFRIIFF team decided to cancel the programme for the 2020 edition in solidarity with youths across Africa championing social justice. “As a film festival committed to promoting greater voice and expression and driven by the passions and aspirations of young people across Africa, we are deeply connected with the messaging championed by our youth across Africa, from the Anti-femicide protests in Namibia to the price hike protest in Mozambique, then the crisis in Cameroun’s Anglophone region and most especially the #ENDSARS protests across Nigeria. Therefore, in solidarity with our youth championing social justice across Africa we have decided to cancel this edition.” Ude said, adding that as an ode to the quest for social justice and the struggle for its attainment by our youth, the festival will be instituting a commemorative sub-category in the documentary genre for the 10th edition called “our rights, our fight” where film entries pertaining to the struggles of 2020 would be received.

African Film Festival Association Launched
AN association for film festivals in the continent dubbed African Film Festival Association (AFFA) has been launched. The association, which the founders said was established to ‘develop, consolidate and build the independent sustainability of African cinema’ and ‘to promote African film festivals’, was launched last Sunday at the sidelines of the 10th Luxor International Film Festival, which ended in Tunisia at the weekend. One of the founding members of AFFA, Mykel Parish Ajaere, said in a statement that AFFA was born with a vision to promote African film festivals as key platform that would nurture and project Africa films, filmmakers and creative works. “AFFA has become a necessity and will focus on programmes and actions, knowledge acceleration, capacity building and agenda-setting that responds to the challenges facing African cinema and film festivals,” said Ajaere, who was elected vice president at the maiden congress of the association held in Tunis. “AFFA aims to network African film festivals in order to share knowledge and expertise. Programming content and best practice experience. It also aims at consolidating and expanding existing circuits and to develop and promote new circuits of discipline based festivals as a means of distributing African films and providing longer income generating opportunities for filmmakers,” Ajaere concluded. Also speaking, the Executive Director of Luxor African Film Festival, Azza Elhosseiny, who was elected President, said, “AFFA will seek, facilitate, monitor and promote international partnerships for Africa film festivals and related film events and it will research and provide information, tools and ideas that will enhance African arts festival and events.” Aside from Elhosseiny and Ajaere other members of the interim executive committee are Firdoze Bulbulia of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Film Festival and Phillip Ama Bentuma Arthur of the Black Star International Film Festival who will serve as Secretary. Arthur disclosed that full membership will be granted to any African film festival in the world that have hosted at least three editions of the said film festival, while associate membership will be granted to festivals that have hosted less than three edition.

MIPTV To Open On April 12
THE 58th Spring International Television Market otherwise called MIPTV will hold online from April 12 to16, 2021 and will encompass the MIPDoc and MIPFormats programmes.  However, Reed MIDEM, organisers of MIPTV and MIPCOM, say this edition will hold online. Jerome Delhaye, Director of Reed MIDEM’s Entertainment Division, had stated that the decision to hold virtual MIPTV is due to COVID-19 pandemic. However, if conditions improve sufficiently by early 2021, Reed MIDEM will look at holding a small, in-person screenings-based event in Cannes during the MIPTV week to complement the digital edition. “CANNESERIES Season 4 will hold in the Palais des Festivals in Cannes from April 9 to 14, 2021,” Delhaye said. In a related development, the 37th World’s Entertainment Content Market otherwise dubbed MIPCOM – along with Kids Programming Market MIPJunior (October 9 and 10, 2021) – will move forward as a live gathering in Cannes on the scheduled dates of October 11 to 14, 2021, welcoming the global distribution and production community back to the Palais des Festivals venue for the first major international television event since MIPCOM 2019.