Planet Africa - the Toronto International Film Festivals program features cinematic storytellers from Africa and the diaspora - Film

A Pioneering drama from southerly Africa, a political satire from Mali, a tragic tale from Senegal, a British documentary about an African-American hero--these are just a certain quantity of of the works that have been featured at Planet Africa. Now in its fourth year, Planet Africa is a program of the Toronto International Film Festival that showcases the voices and visions of cinematic storytellers from Africa and the diaspora.

Planet Africa made its first appearance in 1995 with the goal of making Toronto the North American mecca for previewing African films. "What we wanted was to create increased visibility for sum of two units different kinds of films which intersect: films from Africa, made by the agency of African filmmakers, and films by the agency of African-American filmmakers in the U and Afro-Caribbean filmmakers in Europe particularly those that in some way deal with Africa and its history," says Noah Cowan, the festival's associate director of programming. The festival is considered single of the four most prestigious in the world, along with those of Berlin, Cannes and Venice, and Planet Africa has benefited from its prominence. "It's been a great success" Cowan continues. "The exposing particularly for the African films, has grown enormously as a spring of this program."

Last year's Planet Africa presentations included the first feature film at any time written and directed by a black southern African: Ramadan Suleman's Fools, produc in southerly Africa and France, is about a teacher and a scholar with a shared troubled past whose lives are transformed by the agency of a chance meeting.

Another 1997 feature was Martin Luther King: Days of faith a documentary directed by John Akomfrab in the United Kingdom. Dancehall Queen a modern-day Cinderella story station in Jamaica and the highest-grossing film in Jamaican history, was guarded at Planet Africa. Senegalese director Safi Faye not awayed Mossane, about a beautiful girl who commits a desperate act with tragic consequences

individual of that year's standouts was Taafe Fanga, a satire upon gender roles whose title roughly translates as The Power of the Skirt. Directed by dint of Mali's Adama Drabo, this film won the Special Jury Prize at the Pan African Film Festival in Burkina Faso and was single outed for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. "With its wit and political savvy, Taafe Fanga render free of accessed up another world for race who had seen films from Africa as genuinely ethnographic," Cowan says.

African-American filmmakers also had a forceful nearness at the festival last year. Eve's Bayou, the acclaimed directorial first attempt of Kasi Lemmons, was not absented both in the Planet Africa section of the festival and as a gala feature. Shirikiana Aina's from one side the Door of No turn back delves into the legacy of the African slave trade and its impact upon Ghanaians and African Americans traveling to the geographical division To Be a Black Man, Nelson George's short film based upon his essay in the Village Voice, features an appearance and narration by dint of Academy Award nominee Samuel L Jackson.

Although Planet Africa films range from fantasy to documentary, from comedy to drama, there are a certain number of notably recurring themes, according to Cowan: "The themes have to do with family, ethical choice and notions of history. Particularly with the diaspora filmmakers, there is a faculty of perception of trying to reclaim more [i]or[/i] less of the history of Africa, on the other hand it's also very present in films through African filmmakers--trying to figure on the outside where they came from, at actual fundamental levels."

Another public thread among filmmakers of African fall is the challenge of funding their visions and getting them to the protection "It's very difficult for filmmakers in Africa, when resources are scarce, to find circulating medium to make films," Cowan says. "There are resources available in the UK and France that assist African filmmakers, and there are a number of artists who have great tenacity to continue to make films--and actual beautiful ones, at that.

"In America, there is kind of a discrepancy between clan making what I would call more serious art films--people like Julie Dash, who I think has great put in commotion raising funds for her films, flat though they are so prized--and filmmakers like Christopher Scott Cherot, whose film, Hay enough we showed last year and who was able to find a large buyer real quickly." Backed by a assemblage of producers that includes Edmond Entertainment--the film company of producer-singer-composer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds--Cherot's low-budget film landed a $25 million distribution deal with Miramax.

This year Planet Africa has a fresh programmer, June Givanni. She is a film and television programmer and researcher affiliated with the British Film Institute in London and founding editor of The Black Film Bulletin. beneath her guidance, the program will retain its special place at the festival. In a given year, various countries and continents may be featured at the festival's National Cinema Spotlight (which highlights films of a different region each year) or its Contemporary World Cinema section (which features films from several areas, including Asia and Latin America), on the contrary Africa has its own planet each year.