Category: Entertainment

The German Focus contributes to this year’s Rwanda Film Festival theme, “Our Mother’s Our Heroes”, with a special view on German female filmmakers and female protagonists in cooperation with IWFF – Dortmund | Cologne International Women’s Film Festival.

Ten feature films will present some of the most well known directors like Hermine Huntgeburth, Sandra Nettelbeck, Pia Marais and Maren Ade and actresses like Martina Gedeck, Nina Hoss, Sandra Hüller and Birgit Minichmayr.

Each film had its cinema release in Germany and the lot won several prestigious awards. From classic thriller and drama, to romance and comedy; from films of ‘the Berlin School’ to documentary, the themes and genres of the German Focus are deeply human and eclectic. They focus on women in different roles and positions in society.

While the documentary 11 FRIENDS shows the inner life of the girls of the German women’s national football team, MISS STINNES MOTORS ROUND THE WORLD tells the story of the first woman to circle the world by car, including original footage
from her expedition in 1927.

Several films deal with topics of Germany’s recent history: BARBARA is a doctor working in 1980s East Germany who finds herself banished to a small country hospital because she wants to emigrate to the West.

The comedy,

ALMANYA, spans a period of 45 years to portray a turkish family arriving as “guest workers” at the end of the 60s to Germany, later returning for a journey to their old country. Another comedy, MOSTLY MARTHA, tells the story of a female supreme ruler of the kitchen staff, who suddenly has to care for her young niece.

Silver Bear-winner, EVERYONE ELSE, is an intimate love story of a couple in search of their own identity. Two further films deal with cultural differences in mixed relationships: while the most successful German film of the year 2005, THE WHITE MASAI, tells the autobiographical story of a Swiss woman meeting a Samburu warrior in Kenya, the documentary THE CROCODILES OF THE WANDAOGO FAMILY, follows the journeys of German director Britta Wandaogo and her daughter Kaddi to her husband’s home village in Burkina Faso.

Several years later, Kaddi reflects the role she plays in her German and African families in the short film CROCODILES WITHOUT SADDLES.

Recently released in German cinemas, the thriller, LAYLA FOURIE, is set in South Africa, where director Pia Marais was born and raised. It deals with the problems of society’s mistrust and a single mother, whose daily life is affected by paranoia and fear.

The film was given a “Special Mention” by the International Jury during this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

While those films present a broad spectrum of social themes in today’s cinematic work of Germany, the Focus as a special introduction will present the documentary, GERMANY FROM ABOVE, which takes the audience on a journey with spectacular aerial shots of nature and cities of Germany, discovering the country from a bird’s eye view. Seen from above, you get a wider perspective of the setting, of time and history. We hope to see you all in the cinemas!

{{Festival-goers should get ready to enjoy high temperatures as they watch performers like Joey Blake and Tony Osanah because, this year’s 3rd best music festival “KigaliUp” will be staged at Amahoro Stadium on 13 and 14 July, 2013. }}

The exceptional annual festival Popo will be the 3rd annual event in the country.
It will feature pros and industry insiders, who will enhance the capacity of the music and art industry, to contribute to cultural tourism and economic development of Rwanda.

According to the festive promoter Kanobana Judo “The sole aim is bringing together urban upstarts, tradition bearers, and established international artists—and to get them to perform together on two live music stages; while using local traditional musical instruments.”

“Local heroes Sophie Nzayisenga have already set foot in Kigali and others like Habib Koite, Bamada from Mali are likely to” he said.

The festival will also witness the likes of independent artists from Guma Guma superstar runners up Jay Polly, music star Shanel, and Mani Martin to mention but a few.

The festival is organized by Positive Production Events. The entry of fee will be francs frw3,000 and the first hundred clients will receive free entry courtesy of time.

The event is a combination of Gospel, Reggae, Afro beat, blues and Folk intended to bring Diaspora and beautifully combined traditions with new forms of music. With this event, Rwandans will have a new face of music platform” .

The first annual KigaliUp music festival was held in September 10, 2011 in the lush Kimihurura Roundabout at Primature Park in Kigali, Rwanda.

The brainchild of Juno award-winning Rwandan/Canadian artist Mighty Popo was a ground-breaking affair where 30 artists from Rwanda, Africa, Canada and Europe shared their music and culture to an audience of 2000 people, staffed by a volunteer base of 70 people.

{{After the premiere of this new musical program in Kigali at Ishyo Theater Hall full to capacity, the Gakondo Group will present the Musical Journey at Ahazaza Center in Muhanga. }}

Rwanda’s musical heritage belongs to the most precious of its kind in Africa.

However the custody over the old traditions is still a challenge, and with every old master of Inanga who dies a whole library of musical wisdom disappears. Luckily a young generation of musicians follows their call to save the music of their ancestors.

The Gakondo Group headed by renowned traditional musician INTORE Massamba is the most prolific guardian of Rwanda’s musical world heritage.

Consisting of eight musicians, for this concert Gakondo & friends will perform with the following musicians: Jules Sentore, Daniel Ngarukiye, Sofie Nzayisenga, Michel Ngabo, Manu Habumuremyi, Lionel Mulinda, Abédé, Didier, Tamfum, Massamba Intore, Claude, Nyamaswa, Teta Birangwa, Maria Yohani, and Jean-Paul Samputu.

„We are not Americans, we are not South Africans, we want to conserve our own culture“, Massamba says. „We encourage the young generation to play our traditional instruments like inanga, ikembe, umuduri, umwirongi, ingoma, iningiri and ikondera…!“

The musical journey will start in the North with the Ikinimba from Byumba, Inanga z’urukiga and Ikinyemera from Ruhengeri/Gisenyi, followed by the „poésie pastorale“ and „poésie guerrière“, the Igishakamba from Mutara, music and dances from the royal court, Intwatwa from the Batwa, not forgetting the ku Nkombo music (Cyangugu region) and a great variety of ritual music.

As Daniel Ngarukiye put it: „The old music of my country reminds me of who I am.“ A cooperation between the Ahazaza Center and the Goethe-Institut.

Curtain Raiser Short film “Sentore Athanase” by Patrick Lefebvre & Nadine Uwampayizina (Imitoma Productions)

{{Behind the Candelabra}}

Reportedly Stephen Soderbergh’s last film, Behind the Candelabra stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon and concerns the turbulent relationship between Liberace and his young lover, Scott Thorsen in the late 70s and early 80s.

It also features a strong supporting cast including Rob Lowe and Debbie Reynolds. Expect off-the-scale glitz and camp of the highest order.

{{Only God Forgives}}

Canadian actor Ryan Gosling and Danish director Nicholas Windig Refn collaborate again in this crime drama set in Bangkok’s sleazy, neon-lit underworld – featuring Kristen Scott Thomas as the revenge-thirsty head of a vast criminal organisation.

Gosling told the Hollywood Reporter that this film is “much more extreme” than Drive, his previous film with Refn. Expect shocks and violence aplenty.

{{Inside Llewyn Davis}}

Nominated for the Palme d’Or, the latest film from Ethan and Joel Coen (The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men) follows a week in the life of folk singer Davis, during a bitter New York winter in 1961.

Starring Carey Mulligan and John Goodman, the film also features Justin Timberlake, who collaborated with Mumford and Sons’ singer, Marcus Mumford – also husband of Mulligan – for the film’s soundtrack. Expect bittersweet humour shot in muted colours.

{{Young and Beautiful}}

Francois Ozon is a prolific film-maker who has churned out 14 feature films in the past 15 years – but only one has appeared at Cannes once before (Swimming Pool in 2003).

Plot details are being kept tightly under wraps but the official synopsis describes the film as “”a contemporary portrait of a teenage girl, in four seasons and four songs.” Expect scenes of a sexual nature.

{{Only Lovers Left Alive}}

Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton star as vampires whose love has endured several centuries, until they are interrupted by the wild behaviour of Swinton’s younger sister, played by Mia Wasikowska.

The film, written and directed by veteran indie filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch, was a late addition to Cannes’ official selection. Expect “a crypto-vampire love story”, according to Jarmusch.

{{As I Lay Dying}}

James Franco is certainly not one to rest on his laurels. As I Lay Dying is his second film this year as both director and star, and he has also appeared in Oz the Great and Powerful and Spring Breakers.

His is the first film adaptation of William Faulkner’s classic 1930 novel, which follows the journey of an impoverished family through the American South to bury its matriarch. Expect existential melodrama, Southern Gothic style.

{{Bombay Talkies}}

Cannes celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema this year with a special programme of films. The centrepiece is Bombay Talkies, which plays out of competition at a special midnight screening.

The movie an anthology, made up of four short films by well-known Indian directors and celebrates the diversity of Indian cinema and. Expect more than your standard Bollywood song-and-dance fest.

{{Like Father, Like Son}}

Hirokazu Kereeda’s last appearance at Cannes was in 2009 with Air Doll, a film that divided critics with its story of a middle-aged man who falls in love with a life-size inflatable sex aid.

Like Father, Like Son promises to be a more subdued, less controversial affair, closer in tone to his 2008 family drama, Still Walking. It tells the story of couple who discover that a hospital mix-up has led them to raise the wrong child. Expect subtle, considered filmmaking.

{{Zulu}}

Not to be confused with the 1964 film starring Michael Caine, Zulu is French director Jerome Sale’s first English language movie.

Starring Forest Whitaker and Orlando Bloom, the film, adapted from Caryl Ferey’s novel of the same name, is a conspiracy thriller set in Apartheid-era South Africa.

Zulu has been chosen to close the Cannes film festival. Expect a tense cop thriller with a noir edge.

{BBC}