Our theme for 2011 was Revolution: N Africa

Our opening after party rocked to Moroccan music maestro HASSAN ERRAJi and his fusion band. Music to dance and trance to with live Arab dancer. The opening film Sing Your Song: (USA) had the audience telling us we should show it in every school in the country.

Belafonte’s journey from singer, through tours of apartheid South Africa, to civil rights activist. Supporter and friend of Martin Luther King Jr, he campaigned for human rights and democracy worldwide. His indomitable sense of optimism motivates him even today, as he asks at the age of 84, ‘What can we do now”?

We gave the audience a sneak world premiere preview for Simon Bright’s Robert Mugabe…What Happened? (Zimbabwe). It was eventually brought back to Watershed for a week’s run and played at 33 cinemas around the UK.

Eyefull featured N African animations with some stunning political stories as well as some of our own Bristol shorts. We gave a small for the best film from Bristol. 

No More Fear (Tunisia) was the UK premiere of a Cannes selected film put together from recordings of the Tunisian Revolution as it bappened.

We couldn’t resist showing the old but magnificent Battle for Algiers (Italy/Algeria). with its brilliant music by the young Ennio Morricone (who famously went on to write for spaghetti westerns like Fistful of Dollars). Terryl Bacon and Govinda Dickman of UWE gave a talk on the representation of terrorism.

Lord Paul Boateng our patron, led a packed and inspiring discussion entitled AFRICA RISING and were lucky to get hold of the fascinating international prize winner An African Election (USA/Ghana) – the last presidential election in Ghana which kept us on the edge of out seats

The closing film was the audacious Viva Riva (DRCongo) which had worldwide fans delighting in a film that broke through ‘African’ cinema conventions.

Thanks to Swift Locksmith London for supporting the T-shirts!