Former fashion creative director, photographer and video music director Andrew Dosunmu is finding plenty of reasons to celebrate lately. Distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories recently scooped up the North American rights to his film “Mother of George” at the Sundance Film Festival. Cinematographer Bradford Young won two US dramatic prizes at the festival this year, one […]
This film festival–still the premier site for African film in New York City and on the US east coast–opens tonight at Lincoln Center with a showing of “Mama Africa,” the 2011 documentary by Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki about the life of singer Miriam Makeba “who brought South African music to the world.” The well structured […]
Towards the final scenes of Restless City, Jessye Norman’s solo soprano voice scales the great buildings and the conveyor belts of vehicles, between all of which a small red scooter navigates, carrying the slim bodies of Djibril and Trina. They are here, in this city, with all their desires clenched in their mouths. It is Norman’s voice, following the music composed by Richard Strauss to the poetry of Herman Hesse, that lifts our two immigrants’ desires up on the currents of her song, skylarks freed into the night sky.
Filmmaker Amirah Tajdin and her producer sister Wafa Tajdin are currently working on their first feature, titled “Walls of Leila,” and are running a Kickstarter campaign to help launch their production. For two young, clearly talented filmmakers, this is a film project worth backing. You can visit their kickstarter page here. The film is described […]
I finally got to see director Andrew Dosunmu’s debut feature film, “Restless City,” this summer (at the Urban World Film Festival). The story, part American dream narrative, revolves around a young West African immigrant, Djibril, who lives in Harlem, trying to start his record career, while selling CDs and delivering packages and mail on his moped. […]
I recently missed out on seeing a special screening (at BAM in Brooklyn) of “Restless City,” the new film by Andrew Dosunmu, “… the story of Djibril, an Africa immigrant surviving on the fringes of New York City where music is his passion, life is a hustle, and falling in love is his greatest risk.” […]
Remember “The African Game” the book of striking football images published by powerHouse Books (sponsored by Puma) in 2006? Photographer Andrew Dosunmu and writer Knox Robinson traveled to Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Cote D’Ivoire, Angola, Ghana, Tunisia, and Egypt (which hosted the 2006 African Nations Cup). It seems a few weeks ago Dosunmu posted a short […]
