The Cordoba Africa Film Festival awards five films of Morocco, Rwanda, Sudan, Egypt and Tunisia
The Góngora Theater of Córdoba, hosted the closing ceremony of the 12th edition of the African Film Festival, where the prizes for the best movies and documentaries were awarded. The Moroccan film L’armée du salut by Abdallah Taïa, won the main prize, the Al Tarab Best Feature Film Award

The official jury established that, among the eight fictional movies listed in the official section “Long-Sightedness”, the Award for the Best Feature Film would go to L’armée du salut, among other 8 films that competed in the same section. The jury has given this award for “the subtly adaptation to the cinema his own novel and for presenting without drama the construction of the sexual identity”. The director of FCAT Mane Cisneros was in charge of present the award.

Special mention of the jury to the film Things of the Aimless Wanderer (Ruanda) by Kivu Ruhorahoza, who also won the Audience Award for the Best Feature Film, given by the general public through their votes during the week. The Filmoteca of Andalucía director, Pablo García Casado, has given the honorific award to the director. This shows the welcome of a film that reflects in a new way the colonialism in Ruanda.

Among the documentaries participating in the section “Long-Sightedness”, the jury decided that the Award for the Best Full-length Documentary had to go to hajooj kuka, for his documentary The Beats of the Antonov. This decision has been taken by jury for his analysis of the culture as a resistance form. The film critic Javier Estrada was in charge of the presentation of the award and the well-known Egyptian documentalist, Jihan El Tahri, has been in charge of handing the prize on behalf of the director.

Furthermore, the jury made a special mention to other two documentaries: Chantier A by Tarek Sami, Lucie Dèche and Karim Loualiche, for “the sensibility and simplicity that they present the question of the search of the identity” and La Sirène du Faso Fani, by Michel K. Zongo, for “his ability to use the cinema not only to denounce a system but to change it”.

The jury

In the section “Shortly”, the winner of the Award for the Best Short Film, sponsored by El Corte Inglés, and chosen by the audience has been Peau de Colle by the Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania. The journalist and film critic Javier Tolentino has presented this Award that has been received the Senegalese filmmaker Keba Danso in, on behalf Ben Hania.

Interpretation, and in particular, interpretation of African actresses, was also rewarded during the 12th edition of the African Film Festival. In this case, Guadalupe Arensburg, handed the prize from the Fundación Mujeres por África (Women for Africa Foundation), the institution that sponsors the Award for the Best Actress in a Feature Film. The Award has been given to Horeya Farghaly, the main carácter of the Egyptian film Décor.

The Cameroonian actor Emil Abossolo Mbo, to whom the festival has paid homage during this edition, the Angolan filmmaker Pocas Pascoal and the Spanish producer Martín Pawley, were awarded the responsibility of choosing the winners of the festival.

A ceremony for the audience

The journalist Lucía Mbomio and the Ecuatorial Guinean producer Ladis Bapory Site, who collaborated with the organization during this edition of the festival, were in charge of leading the ceremony, open to all citizens. In addition to the award of the prices, the ceremony hosted other important initiatives that made this edition of the festival.

One of these events was the performance of the CEIP Caballeros de Santiago Choir, who cheered the audience with a series of cradle songs in two African languages, Sango and Lingala, accompanied by the Cuban saxophonist Cristobal Agromonte. This show was the cherry on the top of the workshop on lullabies hold by Cristobal Agromonte, joined by children along the week.