Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria…Top 10 African films at Rotterdam Film Festival
This year’s International Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR) wrapped up with two African films grabbing the top award: José Cardoso’s documentary ‘What the Soil Remembers’, South Africa and Cyrielle Raingou’s ‘Le Spectre de Boko Haram’, Cameron. From a large entry of African films to enter the festival, which ones made our top 10 list?
IFFR 2023 finally reunited audiences and filmmakers from far and wide for a full edition for the first time in three years after the pandemic. In this year’s programme, 15 films produced in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Kenya were screened to the audience.
IFFR enables many African filmmakers to showcase and premiere their work in Europe, in Rotterdam, a hub for culture and diversity. With a super colourful and rich programme, IFFR usually celebrates African cinema with different initiatives, such as African Collectives in 2020, the Pan-African Cinema Lounge in 2018, and Black Rebel programme in 2017.
This year, The Africa Reports highlights the top 10 films coming from the continent by different artists who collectively take up the challenges of filmmaking. Films varied in length, genre, and programmes.
The winner of the Tiger Competition award, worth €40,000 ($42,772), dazzled this year’s jury, who described it as “a story that centres on its filmmakers’ patient and honest gaze on the hovering presence of violence, seen through the eyes of innocents”.
In her profound debut feature, Cyrielle Raingou follows a group of children in a remote village in North Cameron to understand the social effects of living in a war zone, sieged by Boko Haram militants. She approaches subjects with a delicate and discreet observation, allowing them to reflect, resist, and heal.
