Guided Search: Film/Video, Africa

It's WAKANDA FOREVER in Clark Park! Join us as we kick off our 2021 Movies in Clark Park series with Black Panther, the smash hit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after rain forced us to cancel our planned screening in 2018.

Now in its fourth year, the BlackStar Film Festival is a four-day celebration showcasing artistically innovative and genre-defying films by and about the global black experience.

Nicknamed “The Black Sundance” by Ebony magazine, this local festival highlights independent films from emerging directors, producers and writers — all by and about people throughout the African diasporic experience.

The Philadelphia Film Society launches Saturday Morning Specials, a family-friendly and low-priced indie screening series held monthly at the PFS Theater at the Roxy in Rittenhouse Square.

WHITE LION is about a white lion cub, Letsatsi, who embarks on an extraordinary adventure in search of a new life and a new home.

Saturday Morning Specials is supported by The Virginia and Harvey Kimmel Arts Education Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation. 

Opening night of the First Inaugural Children’s Film Festival brings to Philadelphia this stirring and gorgeously hand-animated film, based on the true story of the first giraffe to travel to France. After freeing himself from slavers and fleeing across the moonlit savannah, young Maki meets Hassan, a nomad, and Zarafa, an orphaned baby giraffe. When the Pasha of Egypt orders the giraffe to be taken as a gift to the King of France, the three board a hot air balloon and embark on an adventure-filled ride over North African skies, through the bustling port of Marseilles before landing in Paris. After the king accepts his gift with minimal enthusiasm, Maki becomes determined to get Zarafa back home to Africa.

Watch two films surrounding aspects of life in Africa, directed by Jean Rouch. The feature film, “Moi Un Noir,” depicts an ordinary week in the lives of men and women from Niger who have migrated to Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire for work. It is preceded by Rouch’s “Mammy Water.” IHP.

Dubbed “the black Sundance” by Ebony Magazine, the BlackStar Film Festival is a celebration of cinema focused on work by and about people of African descent in a global context

A young aspiring actor from upcountry Kenya dreams of becoming a success in big city Nairobi. Drawn into a new world of theft and violence, he struggles to keep his acting and criminal worlds separate.

Experimental Shorts curated by Amir George and Erin Christovale. Curator Erin Christovale will be present for a Q&A after the film. 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with Mythmedia:21 will screen Afropunk’s new documentary project, The Triptych, as a part of the museum’s new PAY-WHAT-YOU-WISH Wednesdays.