As a way of celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) has said it will be training a thousand professionals and young budding artists across Africa at the forthcoming 2021 AFRIFF festival.
This is even as it announced that festival will take place from November 7 to November 13, 2021 while disclosing that 2021 edition of the festival is in partnership with US Consulate, Lagos, Access Bank, Konga, Pernod Ricard, Afreximbank, Pan African Capital, Landmark and Filmhouse Group.
Speaking at the briefing which was held in Lagos at the weekend, AFRIFF founder and Executive Director, Chioma Ude, noted that Africa’s most vibrant and innovative Film Festival would this year clock a landmark 10th anniversary.
“I am super excited to announce our 10th-anniversary edition, following the global pandemic! It is with the greatest pleasure that we once again bring our varied programme of the very best of cinema and film content to the forefront.”
“We are proud to theme this year’s festival as one dedicated to Africans for Africa, those who enable us to dream and to celebrate storytelling which challenges society. I am also very excited to announce that we will dedicate a day to anime and gaming to continue our vibrancy and innovation. We will continue to focus our efforts on training and supporting 1000 more filmmakers than ever before, as well as building global bridges, and promoting further cross-cultural exchanges”, She said.
Sid Esiri, popularly known as Dr Sid, who was among the panel at the briefing, noted that the film festival would also witness the screening of animations and games contents.
Also speaking at the briefing, the Creative Director of AFRIFF, Jenny Alonzo, said that the festival received a record-breaking number of submissions (over 4000) this year from over 100 countries, the highest it has received to date and will screen almost 150 projects – including features, shorts, documentaries and much more selected by our team of programmers, who watched over 2000 hours of footage.
This year’s festival will open with Michael Pearce’s eagerly anticipated sci-fi thriller, Encounter. Encounter stars Emmy award winner and Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Riz Ahmed and Oscar-Winning actress, Octavia Spencer.
The film follows two brothers who embark on a journey with their father, who is trying to protect them from an alien threat. The festival will then close with Bolanle Austin Peters’ COLLISION. A heart fluttering story, that sifts the seedy underbelly of rogue law enforcement officers and the atrocious results as they collide head-on with a frustrated young man and a conflicted member of the police force.