WINDHOEK- AfricAvenir is this month commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1994-Rwandan Genocide. On this occasion AfricAvenir and the Goethe-Centre Windhoek invite to the Namibian Premiere of the Rwandan film „Imbabazi – The Pardon“ tomorrow at the Goethe Centre at seven O’clock (19H00) and entrance is N$30.
Directed by Joel Karekezi, the 73 minutes feature film was awarded the Nile Grand Award (4000 USD and Golden Tutankhamen Award) at the 3rd Luxor African Film Festival last March 2014. In February 2014, the film also won Best Director and Best Film in A Thousand Hills Academy Awards.
Best friends Manzi and Karemera find themselves on opposing sides in Rwanda’s ethnic civil war, with Tutsi Karemera’s family paying a horrific price for Manzi’s allegiance to his Hutu heritage. Manzi is elevated to the position of local leader and is unable to withstand the peer pressure when the genocide begins. He kills Karemara’s father and younger brother. When Manzi is released from prison fifteen years later, his return re-opens old wounds. Filmmaker Joel Karekezi draws from his own experience as a survivor of Rwanda’s violence in creating this moving account of two former friends who must contend with the unimaginable horrors in their past. The film intercuts between present day and the time just before and during the genocide.
Meanwhile next Tuesday the same venue features Soul Boy, a 57 minutes Kenyan drama film directed byHawa Essuman (2009-10).
Soul Boy is written by Billy Kahora. It developed under the mentorship of German director and producer Tom Tykwer in Kibera, one of the largest slums in the African continent, in the middle of Nairobi, Kenya. The film has received five nominations at the 2011 African Movie Academy Awards.
Nairobi, Kenya. 14-year-old Abila lives with his parents in Kibera, one of the largest slums in East Africa. One morning the teenager discovers his father ill and delirious. Someone has stolen his soul, mumbles the father. Abila is shocked and confused but wants to help his father and goes in search of the right remedy. Supported by his girlfriend Shiku, he embarks on an adventurous journey that leads him right to the heart of the microcosm that is his hometown.
For a number of years now, Tom Tykwer’s partner Marie Steinmann has been working in the slums of Nairobi with the art workshop “Art Education for Children”, organized by the NGO Anno’s Africa. The initiative gave rise to the German offshoot One Fine Day e.V. “I wanted to play a part in this. But the only thing I am capable of doing is film,” Tykwer said. And so the idea for a film workshop was born, which in turn has led to a veritable cinematic event: SOUL BOY.