PAFF 2013 PreviewPosted by Wilson Morales
February 7, 2013
Starting this week is the 21th Anniversary of the Pan African Film Festival, which will kick off festivities with a star-studded Opening Night Gala on Thursday, February 7, 2013.
PAFF, America’s largest and most prestigious international Black film festival, will take place February 7-18, 2013 at the new Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills 15 (formerly the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15) at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. The theatre is situated on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between Marlton Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard).
This year, PAFF has selected a total of 154 films, representing 34 countries — that is, 23 documentaries, 13 short documentaries, 67 narrative features, and 51 narrative shorts. The festival will hand out prizes for Best Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Short, Best Narrative Short, Best Narrative Feature, and Best First Feature Film, as well as audience favorite awards at the close of the festival. For more information, including how to purchase tickets, please visit www.paff.org or call (310) 337-4737.
Over the years, it has showcased films from all parts of the world, representing such countries as Angola, Austria, England, Bermuda, Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, South African, Nigeria, and of course, the United States. With the pulse on the international film market, PAFF has opened the minds of its audiences, and transported them to lands far away and back home again.
The Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) tapped the lovely-and-talented actress Salli Richardson-Whitfield to serve as its 2013 celebrity host. “She’s a combination of beauty and brains – that is, a seasoned actress who’s chosen smart roles to gracefully elevate, and not compromise the image of African American women in film and television. Through her craft, she is an amazing storyteller, and the film festival is excited to have her as a celebrity host,” said Ayuko Babu, founder and executive director of PAFF. The festival will also honor award-winning actress Lynn Whitfield with its highest honor, a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in television and film. “Lynn Whitfield is a force to be reckoned with on the screen, whether big or small,” says Babu. “Through her craft, she’s a wonderful storyteller. She brings a larger-than-life presence to all her roles, almost like she holding court, captivating audiences and delivering riveting performances each and every time.”
The PAFF will recognize its fresh faces of Young Hollywood, by honoring actors Omari Hardwick and Nicole Beharie with its Canada Lee and Beah Richards Rising Star Awards, respectively. The two will be feted at the annual Night of Tribute ceremony during the festival’s run. Co-produced by the Africa Channel, the Night of Tribute honors world-renowned actors, filmmakers, community leaders and fine artists for their contributions on stage, television, film, the arts and the community. PAFF’s “Rising Star” awards are named after actors Canada Lee and Oscar-nominee Beah Richards, who pioneered roles for African Americans in film, television and stage, and sparked civil rights activism in their work.
Opening the festival will be the Los Angeles premiere of the Voodoo psycho thriller, “Vipaka,” directed by Philippe Caland (“Boxing Helena”), starring Oscar winner Forest Whitaker and Anthony Mackie. The cast includes Sanaa Latham, Nicole Ari Parker and Mike Epps.
Set in New Orleans, an earnest life-coach/author, Thomas Carter (Mackie), is mysteriously abducted by a deranged client, Angel Sanchez, (Whitaker), who delves into Thomas’ teachings and uses his spiritual messages of Karma and Vipaka – that is, action and reaction — against him to terrorize him and his family for their past sins. Lathan plays Mackie’s wife. The term “Vipaka” is a Buddhist term, which means the result of Karma.
The PAFF Film Institute of the Pan African Film Festival will dissect the topic of slavery in films with a panel discussion, titled “Django Unchained: A Discussion on Slavery and the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation,” with some of the nation’s leading academic thinkers and entertainment tastemakers on race, pop culture and entertainment. Also, the Oscar-nominated producer, Reginald Huldlin of “Django Unchained” will certainly weigh in on the topic in delivering his closing keynote address on “The State of Black Entertainment.”
Opening Night film is Vipaka
Set in New Orleans, an earnest life-coach/author, Thomas Carter (Mackie), is mysteriously abducted by a deranged client, Angel Sanchez, (Whitaker), who delves into Thomas’ teachings and uses his spiritual messages of Karma and Vipaka – that is, action and reaction — against him to terrorize him and his family for their past sins. Lathan plays Mackie’s wife. The term “Vipaka” is a Buddhist term, which means the result of Karma.
For a complete list of films, visit www. paff.org
Here’s a selected list of films in competition
Apt 4E (US/Narrative Feature/87min)
Director: Russell Leigh Sharman
Cast: Nicole Beharie and Christopher Domig
A suicidal shut-in. A man at her door. And neither is who they seem. A dark romance about Piper, a troubled young woman who never leaves her apartment, and John, who appears one night
offering to help. All they have in common is Mollie. Piper met Mollie online, and Mollie changed everything. She shared Piper’s fascination with language; the lyricism, weight, and wonder of words.
Then, tonight, a knock at the door. An intrusion into Piper’s carefully-constructed world. It’s John Sharp, Mollie’s brother. He was sent to talk Piper out of things she’s threatening. But Piper isn’t interested in
that. Or in John. She hungers to know more about Mollie. She has only four flat little pictures. And a book. She aches to know what John knows of Mollie, the way she walks, how she smells, anything to
expand on those little black characters on a screen. The night unfolds. They circle each other, John frantic to “save” Piper, and Piper desperate to know all there is about a woman she’s never met through
a man she hardly knows. But the more she learns of Mollie, the more she learns of John. And truth about John may be more troubling than Piper expected.
Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn (US/Documentary/90min)
Director: Ramin Niami
For over fifty years, Laura Mae Gross (Mama Laura), an African American woman from Mississippi, brought musicians together, regardless of race, age, or gender, in a place where only the
music mattered. Originally located on legendary Central Ave in South Central Los Angeles, Mama Laura created a place where masters such as Johnny Lee Hooker, BB King, Albert King, and others shared the stage with newcomers in an open, creative, and safe environment. Featuring original music and stunning guitar performances by some of today’s most important blues artists, musicians share their life experiences and personal stories about what it means to devote your life to music and of course their memories of Mama Laura. Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn is a stunning celebration of the art, creativity, virtuosity and passion of what became a Temple to the Blues!
Back Then (US/Narrative Feature/90min)
Director: Danielle L. Ross
Cast: Aaron D. Spears, Melinda Williams, Oren Williams, Sabrina RevelleTae HeckardChyna LayneAngel ConwellGabriel CasseusDebra Wilson
Every teenage boy wants to be the object of all the girls’ affection. But when your gear isn’t right and your mother only believes in buying clothes secondhand, your high school social life is bound to
suffer. Gavin Miller endures the pain of high school and grows up to be smart and successful, leaving behind the trauma of high school in the 1990s. That is until Rochelle Davis, a blast from his past walks
back into his life to remind him how “uncool” he was in high school. Gavin’s feelings for Rochelle come rushing back but Gavin’s best friend Andrea ‘Dre’ Devine reminds him of the heartache Rochelle
inflicted. Ignoring the warning Gavin finds himself facing the same heartbreak.
Candid (US/Narrative Feature/93min)
Director: vishnu seesahai
A video voyeur stalks women in the city with a digital camera. He is searching for something but he can’t quite get a handle on what. All he knows is that he is driven by some undefinable need. When
he crosses paths with a beautiful model who allows him to indulge his passion, he is intrigued by her willingness to be his muse. Soon he discovers she harbors a dark secret; she is a serial killer who in her
compulsion is also willing to pull him into her depraved world. Oddly, it is only through his descent into what seems to be hell that he finds what he has been searching for. A dark, intense film that will keep
you guessing.
Circles (US/Narrative Feature/90min)
Director: Tricia Woodgett
They say that we are all connected with only 6 degrees of separation. The story focuses on members of a diverse and loose group of people living in Dallas. From a beautiful future law student to a
“bad boy” drug dealer, individuals at various points meet one another and socialize together, in some cases not even realizing that they share mutual acquaintances. When Chenelle, the future law student,
is informed that she is HIV positive, she lashes out in anger, having unprotected sex with men she believes in some way have hurt her in the past, failing to inform them of her health status. She finally
meets up with Greedy, who she believes was the source of her infection, and tells him she is “positive.” He, like her, lashes out violently, abusing all the women whom he thinks may have infected him. And so
the circle goes on—fueled by lies, deceit and in some cases fatal consequences.
Coalition, The (US/Narrative Feature/100min)
Director: Monica Mingo
Co-written and produced by Baltimore Ravens’ Terrell Suggs
Dating a professional athlete opens up an A-list whirlwind of VIP nightclubs, charity galas, upscale spas, and lavish gifts – but it can also lead to a world of deception, cheating and heartache. A group of women form an unlikely alliance to get revenge on a superstar baller and his friends for playing them. For these playboys used to getting whatever they want when they want it – all that’s about to change. But in this game of who’s playing who, some discover that revenge has a price all its own.
Dreams of a Life (UK/Narrative Feature/90min)
Director: Carol Morley
Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, surrounded by Christmas presents she had been wrapping, and with the TV still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of her life– not even a
photograph. Interweaving interviews with imagined scenes from Joyce’s life, Dreams of a Life is an imaginative, powerful, multilayered quest, and is not only a portrait of Joyce but a portrait of London in
the eighties—the City, music, and race. It is a film about urban lives, contemporary life, and how, like Joyce, we are all different things to different people. It is about how little we may ever know each other,
but nevertheless, how much we can love.
Elza (Guadeloupe/France/Narrative Feature/80min)
Director: Mariette Monpierre
Bernadette, a single mother in Paris, tries to provide her daughters with everything. She is thrilled when her eldest daughter, Elza, is the first in the family to graduate from college, earning a
master’s degree summa cum laude. But Elza breaks her mother’s heart by running away to their native Guadeloupe in search of a distant childhood memory: the father she barely remembers. This feature
debut by writer/director Mariette Monpierre offers an unusual insider’s view of lush island culture as she captures the passion and contradictions of this family.
Garifuna In Peril (US/Honduras/Narrative Feature/99min)
Director: Alí Allié & Ruben Reyes
A Garifuna language teacher, Ricardo, struggles to preserve his endangered Afro-Amerindian culture by building a language school back in his home village in Honduras, Central America. A business
venture with his brother designed to raise money for the school’s construction becomes complicated by the expansion plans of a nearby tourist resort into indigenous territory. Historical parallels are invoked
as Ricardo’s son rehearses a stage play about the Garifuna people’s last stand against British colonialism over 200 years ago in their motherland, the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean.
The Great Divide (US/Narrative Feature/90min)
Director: Ibrahim Yilla
Tosha Landry, eccentric wife and nucleus of a circle of ethnically diverse friends, is a student of the ancient Indian teaching of the Tantra and Kama Sutra. One Friday evening at the monthly gettogether,
Tosha introduces a game designed to elicit feelings and impressions men and women have about each other. Starring Tichina Arnold, Darren Dewitt Henson, Richard T. Jones, Golden Brooks and
Rosie Perez.
Holla II (US/Narrative Feature/92min)
Director: H.M. Coakley
After narrowly escaping with her life at the hands of Veronica, her mentally ill sister, Monica, with the help of her Mother, Marion, has taken great measures to ensure her safety, including plastic
surgery to change her face and relocating to the South. Six years have passed and now she finally believes she is safe from Veronica. Little does she know that death and betrayal still await her and her
friends on the eve of her wedding at a southern plantation house rumored to be haunted by 13 murdered slaves. This time no one is safe and everyone is a suspect as killing seems to become
addictive. Stars Vanessa Bell Calloway, Kiely Williams.
Home Again (Canada/Narrative Feature/102min)
Director: Sudz Sutherland
On the most fundamental level, Home Again asks the question, “How would you survive?” A story based in fact, the script was inspired by the practice of various governments to deport
incarcerated landed immigrants to rid itself of unwanted population. The issue is a particularly difficult problem in Jamaica where the deportee population outnumbers the prison population by seven times;
where there are little to no resources to help deportees establish new lives, and where the deportees are largely blamed for the serious violence that rocks the country. Jamaica has the third highest per
capita murder rate in the world.
Homecoming (US/Narrative Feature/95min)
Director: Eugene Ashe
A funny, poignant story of a group of 30-somethings, successful in their own individual ways, who had attended the historically Black college Haywood University in Washington DC. Hill Hadley, now
a professor at Haywood, has married his college sweetheart Leslie, and they went so far as to buy and renovate the old dorm house, known as “Eleanor” where they all lived in while students. Hill decided it
would be fun to invite their old college friends back to Haywood for Homecoming Weekend. The friends, Deena Scott, now a successful Hollywood TV writer; Dr. Barrett Wallingford, a successful psychiatrist; and, Abby Long, a social worker in the hood, return for what is supposed to be a care-free weekend of fun and an opportunity to rekindle relationships. But there was a sixth member of the group, Robert who recently died penniless and in prison. When Abby asks everyone to chip in to give Robert a proper burial, it sparks memories with secrets that require the friends not just to bury a friend, but to also bury the past.
The Kill Hole (US/Narrative Feature/89min)
Director: Mischa Webley
Lt. Samuel Drake is a troubled vet plagued by his actions while deployed in Iraq. Recently discharged, he is trying to piece his life back together while he works as a cab driver and lives in a
rundown motel room. He also attends counseling sessions led by Marshall to help cope with the horrors of his past. While on this path to a fresh start, Drake’s fragile new life is shattered when two executives, who represent a private military contractor, present a new mission, one with no option to refuse; track down and kill Sgt. Devin Carter, an AWOL Marine Corps. sniper who knows the truth about Drake’s past and who himself is on a mission to target and kill members of the mercenary firm. A gripping, lyrical meditation on war and the scars it leaves on those who fight, The Kill Hole is a story of one man who is forced to face his violent past. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Tory Kittles, Billy Zane, Peter Greene, Dennis Adkins, and Ted Rooney
La Playa D.C. (Colombia/Brazil/France/Narrative Feature/90min)
Director: Juan Andrés Arango Garcia
When their father is killed in the seaside town of Buenaventura, three Afro-Columbian brothers flee the civil war and land in the capital Bogotá. But in this city of exclusion and racism the effects of the
displacement are always present. Their mother’s new boyfriend kicks them out one-by-one and they each must fend for themselves. The focus is on the middle brother Tomas who refuses to become yet
another victim of his rough social environment. The fraternal bond is strong, yet it is tested as Tomas sees his younger brother Jairo and older brother Chaco disappearing into drugs and petty crime, the
route he is trying to avoid. He first tries his hand at cleaning hubcaps, then finds a place for his creative talent- and possibly his way out- working as an apprentice in a barbershop, creating “tropas,” the
elaborate and fanciful hair designs popular with young Afro-Colombian men. Under the amusingly stern eye of his barbershop mentors, Tomas keeps tabs on his wayward siblings. But when his younger
brother goes missing, Tomas hits the winding and worn streets of Bogotá exposing the uncertainty and fragility of life in the vibrant and unstable city which eventually forces him to face his past and set aside
the influence of his brothers to find his own identity. Tomas ultimately finds himself standing on the threshold between what once was and what might be. Enhanced by a powerful hip hop soundtrack that
authenticates its social realism, this story surprisingly turns out to be one of hope and affirmation. An official selection of Un Certain Regard, 2012 Cannes Film Festival
Let’s Stay Together (US/Narrative Feature/100min)
Director: joshua bee alafia
Produced by Yaya DaCosta. Starring Albert Lamont, Ashley Ramsey, Jill Jose, Jonan Everett, and Joshua Bee Alafia
On the premonition that a new Rev. Al Green album could save families, Parker embarks on a mission to better understand the role of black men and their families. Although it sounds crazy and his friends think he has lost his mind, Parker decides to make a documentary that will show a palette of relationships between black men and the family unit, explaining why the problem exists. In the film within the film we meet his friend Freddy who struggles with his mixed-race identity and becomes determined to deliver his Filipina girlfriend from her “shame of being black” confusion. Couple Noah and Carmen want to be rock stars, but when Carmen becomes pregnant, she forces Noah to confront the fact that he’s never met his father. Tariq’s ex-wife brings their 8-year-old girl to stay with him while she
pursues her career, much to the dismay of Tariq’s blues singer girlfriend Ishara. Even Parker finds himself in a situation that may result in his absence, when his ex-girlfriend Nzinga realizes she is pregnant and wants to have the baby alone because of his Al Green obsession. Will Al Green’s music prove to enchant, awaken and inspire the streets of Brooklyn and the world? Shot in various locations in Brooklyn, this dramedy provides a rich commentary on a major issue facing many black Americans.
Pirogue, The (Senegal/France/Germany/Narrative Feature/87min)
Director: Moussa Touré
Retired Senegalese fisherman Baye Laye is persuaded to captain a wooden fishing boat – a pirogue – to lead 30 men and a stowaway woman on a dangerous journey across the seas to Europe for a better life. Initially hesitant, Laye agrees to go, driven by aspirations for his own family. The trip gradually descends into disaster as the pirogue’s human cargo fight for survival against the treacherous conditions of the Atlantic Ocean. The presence of the female stowaway causes some friction among the men, while religious and ethnic differences also complicate matters. A poignant encounter with another helpless pirogue, carrying men desperate for food and water, forces a focus on their other pressing anxieties. The beautifully shot images blend perfectly with the characteristic sounds of Senegal, helping
deliver a well-crafted drama that is compelling to watch. Keith Shiri
Things Never Said (US/Narrative Feature/111min)
Director: Charles Murray
Kalindra Stepney is an emerging spoken-word poetess, someone who willingly speaks her thoughts, but she’s an artist who has yet to find her voice. A native of California, Kal has dreams of taking her poems to New York and the infamous Nuyorican Café stage. Haunted by a miscarriage and saddled with Ronnie, a husband who’s angry and without direction – he uses his fists as a form of speech – Kal tries desperately to find an outlet for her struggling voice. Adding to her distress is best friend and poet compatriot Daphne, also grappling with love liabilities. Her boyfriend Steve is a lout who willfully and regularly takes advantage. Kal doesn’t approve. These scenarios, coupled with the surprise and uncertainty of new love Curtis Jackson, hit Kal where she’s most vulnerable. Just as she helps Curtis with unchallenged perceptions about a past relationship and his estranged young daughter, Curtis’ influence leads Kal to dig deeper, to find her voice, confidence and sense of self-worth.
Closing Night Film is Shola Lynch’s Free Angela & Political Prisoners
The documentary, which screened in September at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, centers on Angela Davis being implicated in murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the Marin County Courthouse hostage-taking. She was acquitted two years later.
