SSFF & ASIA joins Luxor African Film Festival in Egypt
The 5th edition of “Luxor African Film Festival” was held from 17th to 23rd March in Luxor, Egypt. Known as the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor is frequently characterized as the “world’s greatest open-air museum”; ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city limits.
Since its first edition, held in 2012, Luxor African Film Festival has been aiming to support and encourage African film productions and partnerships among countries throughout the continent. It does this by strengthening the humanitarian and political ties between the people of Africa in general, and among African artists in particular.
For the opening, a grand ceremony was held in front of Hatshepsut Temple in Deir el-Bchari. The ceremony began with a speech by the Egyptian minister of Culture, followed by a performance of many tribal dances originating from neighboring African countries.
Over the weekend, two special short film programs by SSFF & ASIA were screened at the festival, and a special masterclass on script writing and script construction was led by filmmaker and lecturer Yasuhiko Tanaka.
Seigo Tono, SSFF & ASIA’s Festival Director, also joined the African Film Festival Network Conference where he met many other film festival directors, from countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sudan, Madagascar and Uganda. Here he discussed the future potential of collaborations between Africa and Asia.
It was a short stay in Luxor, but we feel very fortunate to have had the chance to meet so many interesting professionals in the African film industry. We hope to see more short film submissions from African countries in the coming years.
