British singer Andreya Triana performing her song, ‘Far Closer,’ Live at Cafe Oto, London.
The Smiling Faces of Young Africans
February 28, 2011 By 10 Comments
Joy is possible amidst poverty and material commodities are not necessary for happiness. This was the lesson that Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Clayton Kershaw learned during his recent trip to Africa. A feature in the New York Times by Karen Crouse describes the Dodgers player and his wife, Ellen’s trip to Zambia with the child sponsorship ministry, Arise Africa.
‘The Art of Citizenship in African Cities’
February 28, 2011 By 3 Comments
Two-day conference on May 6 and 7 on the campus of Columbia University in Manhattan’s Upper West Side :
Puppet History
February 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
Ugandan director Peter Muhumuza Tukei’s short film “Kengere” was selected for the Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year. (He also directed a short “Ink,” about a 10-year-old girl who creates another reality using paper silhouettes. He has just returned from the Berlin Talent Campus (“Berlin was a great experience”) when AIAC asked him some questions about his beautifully suggestive stop-motion film in which he relates the story of something that happened in the village of Mukura in 1989.–Tom Devriendt
‘Not Everything Was Cool Back Then’
February 28, 2011 By 1 Comment
Commercial for Kinky Afro, a weekly retro radio show of 80s pop on the bland Cape Town radio station Good Hope fm. (Not sure if the show exists anymore.) Links to two more spots for the campaign–watch here and here.
Oscar, Oscar
February 27, 2011 By 1 Comment
Appropriate viewing for Oscar Night:
Reuters’ Africa Journal profiles U.S based Kenyan actor, Benjamin “Benji” Ochieng, aka Colonel Emanuel Okeze, the prince’s bodyguard who faces off with Bruce Willis … in “Tears of the Sun” (2003). Ochieng takes us through his rise from the ranks of the Hollywood extra to finally nailing a speaking part … when the producers of “The X Files” were told he could speak Swahili. The clip [in the report] of Ochieng on the beach, helping Scully find the alien artifact, is from “The Sixth Extinction” episode of the X Files (Part 2 of the Biogenesis story arc) from Season 7. However, it seems he didn’t tell “The X Files” producers that since their script called for a West Africa beach/coastline, ideally, nobody in that part of Africa should speak or understand Swahili … Anyway, the profile is a nice look at an African actor in Hollywood, struggling it out with everyone else.
* BTW, this year marks the first time in 10 years that there are no black acting nominees at The Oscars.
“Your Own Private Africa”
February 27, 2011 By 1 Comment
That’s the unfortunate headline–I couldn’t miss it at a newsstand close to my office–of an article about Namibia in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic’s “Traveler” magazine.
