GRIOT MEDIA: Helsinki African Film Festival: Africa seen through the eyes of African film makers.

Ike Chime with Njoki Wa Ngugi

HAFF,The Helsinki African Film Festival was set up few years ago to provide in-depth knowledge of the African people, their culture, and world-view through films made and directed by Africans, or other people with positive interest about Africa.
Helsinki African Film Festival brings entertaining and thought provoking selection of African films to Finland. According to HAFF's statement on their website, the festival aims to foster communication across cultures and support dialogue on wide ranging issues related to Africa

HAFF Director Wanjiku Wa Ngugi
chatting with the SA Ambassador
His Excellency, L M S Mngqikana

The festival is organized by HAFF working committee together with Shalin Suomi ry, a non-profit organization based in Finland working on development issues.

In 2011, the theme of the festival was 'Women Voices' The program featured an inspiring selection of films and documentaries by African women film makers, and other excellent films where African women played a central role. The selected films were those that broke away from the often stereotypical portrayal of the African woman in popular film and the media, instead the films showcased the diversity, of the African woman's experience.

In the selected films, the African women were seen confronting, and, or engaging in transformational issues, or just highlighting their day to day triumphs, and tribulations.

The director of HAFF is Kenya born Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, daughter of the renowned African literal giant Ngugi Wa Thiongo.
Her younger sister, Njoki Wa Ngugi who resides in the United States was a special guest at the festival, and did a performance during the opening of the festival.

One of the major highlights of the 2011 film festival was the presence of Uganda born female film director, Caroline Kamya. Her award winning film, Imani was among the films exhibited during the festival.

Caroline Kamya
Ugandan female film director

IMANI vibrantly captures three vignettes of life in modern day Uganda: A child soldier returning to the parents who could not protect him, a woman fighting to get her wrongly accused sister out of jail, and a youth dance troop leader struggling to simply get through a hometown performance. These seemingly disparate stories slowly fuse into a profound singular narrative as the characters reveal themselves to be uniformly off balance in their own lives, and the world around them. Caroline Kamya’s fast and confident directing effortlessly makes the most of the beautiful Ugandan setting. With a rich and varied soundtrack, and the restless energy of the dancers it follows, Imani sprints by at the pace of a far less substantial film. Kamya’s unadorned approach to her characters and the film’s straightforward and unflinching script, provide an intimate exploration of characters who will likely remain far from resolution for some time to come.

(The Ugandan Diaspora)

Imani Trailer

The theme for the festival for this year 2013 is yet to go public. Griot-Media hopes to bring you a report on that, as soon as the theme, and date is fixed.

For more information about Helsinki African Film Festival, click on haff logo below.