Throughout Africa and all around the year, there is at least one film festival happening somewhere. These film festivals in Africa hold in them a promise of value and excellence as wells as awards to encourage filmmakers.
Africa is fast becoming a prolific location for films on the planet. Its libraries of good films – from the Southernmost part of the continent to the Nothern regions – are approaching a point where they can be called some of the world’s best.
List of film festivals in Africa
Independent films are time grabbing masterpieces that compete for attention with top production companies many times.
Film festivals are great places to see these independent films – sometimes almost for free.
- Encounters South African International Documentary Festival
South Africa’s formative event for screening contemporary South African and international features and short documentaries. The festival opens to everyone in South Africa and if you are visiting the country around June any year, it is a good place to be.
A multi-genre slate of local and international films feature at this Johannesburg’s longest-running annual film festival.
- Pan African, African-American Film Festival
One place to gathers and shares a broad spectrum of creative works and films is the Pan African Film & Arts Festival exists for evolving black storytellers.
- PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival
PLURAL+ is a UNESCO youth video festival that encourages and empowers global youth to explore the pressing social issues of migration, diversity, social inclusion, and the prevention of xenophobia.
JFF platform is another place that shares Africa stories. The key objective is to curate, elevate and celebrate a strengthened local and African film and entertainment industry.
- The Mobile Moviemakers Film Festival Cape Town (MMOCA)
This platform showcases, nurture and support the emerging creative filmmaker, who uses the latest technology available from a mobile device (smartphone, tablet, action camera or drone) to create stories in a cinematic way.
Film festivals in West Africa, East Africa
- The African International Horror Film Festival
An annual Horror film festival for independent horror filmmakers in Lagos, Nigeria. Films that feature here are dark, thrilling, and horror-themed short and feature-length films as well as animations.
- Cotonou International Women’s Film Festival
This festival aims to promote films made by African women, on subjects of choice. The International Women’s Film Festival has two sections that are open to everyone.
- The Black Star International Film Festival
This non-profit festival is a good reason to visit one of West Africa’s exciting countries, Ghana. It is an annual festival aimed at bridging the gap between African movie cinema and the global community of moviemakers.
It is a business-themed film festival to enlighten guests on the business of filmmaking.
- The Holiday Market Festival (HMFestival)
One film festival in East African film that mixes in all manner of the art exhibition is the Holiday Market Festival. It is a festival for female filmmakers in Tanzania.
- Kukastream Online African Film Festival (KOAFF)
KOAFF is an online festival to promote the works of African filmmakers across the world. It features short films of all genres – drama, comedy, thriller, inspirational, documentary, animation, family, and web series.
- Annecy International Animation Film Festival
This is a spot for African Animation that takes place at the beginning of June. It has its origin in France but has a sub-category for animation filmmakers in Africa.
The festival is a competition between cartoon films of various techniques.
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