Justin Pearce
M-NET=D5S African Film Awards are coming out of hiding for the first time=
this year, with a festival which will bring the best of the competition ent=
to audiences in Cape Town and Gauteng. The festival line-up comprises seven films from West and North Africa,=20 something which is made possible by the opening of this year=D5s=20 competition to all African films, regardless of language. Previously, entri=
had to be in English (or, rather uselessly for anyone north of Messina, in=
Tunisia offers Moufida Tlatli=D5s drama, Les Silences du Palais, and Moncef=
Dhouib=D5s Soltane el Medina, a contemporary story of forced marriage and=
The Egyptian component opens with Nader Galal=D5s The Terrorist, about the=
wave of fundamentalism sweeping the Arab world. At the other end of=20 Egyptian history is Youssef Chahine=D5s The Emigrant, an epic set in=20 Pharaonic times. Mercedes is the debut film of director Yousry Nasrallah,=
looking at the effects of cultural, social and sexual repression and set in=
1990, against the backdrop of the fall of Stalinism and the Gulf Crisis. Hyenas, by Senegal=D5s Djibril Diop Mamb=8Ety, is an adaption of=20 D=9Frrenmatt=D5s play The Visit. Rue Princesse, by Ivorian Henri Duparc, is= a=20 humorous look at prostitution and the threat of Aids, conveyed through the=
tale of a rich kid who forms a relationship with a prostitute. The festival has been organised in association with the Afro-Arab trade fai=
at Nasrec near Johannesburg, and four screenings will take place there.=20 Other venues are the Labia and Baxter in Cape Town; the Carlton and=20 Seven Arts in Johannesburg; and Bet-El in Pretoria. Organisers have acknowleged that African cinema has yet to win the=20 affection of South African cinemagoers, which seems to be the reason why=20 M-Net has not yet stuck out its neck so far as to screen the festival films= on=20 TV. Festival adviser Lionel Ngakane said he hoped the festival would=20 convince mainstream distributors that there is indeed a market for African=
films in South Africa. The festival begins in Cape Town on September 15, and in Gauteng on=20 September 22