Katarina Hedrén talks to Sudanese producer, director and screenwriter  Amjad Abu-Alala about keeping a film industry alive in times of great upheaval, about collaboration and knowing when compromise is possible and when it’s not.

Amjad Abu-Alala is a prolific Sudanese film director, producer and screenwriter. His first feature film, the multi-award winning You will Die at 20 premiered at the 2019 Venice Days where it won the Lion of the Future award. The film has since screened and won awards at numerous film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival before its commercial release in Egypt, Tunisia, France and the US, among other countries.

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut

In this episode Jyoti and Katarina Hedrén continue a conversation about identity, belonging and creative expression that has been going on for years. Jyoti talks about the importance of ‘play’ as a strategy, about freedom and why she makes no distinction between her roles as a filmmaker and an educator.

Renowned South African filmmaker Jyoti Mistry - Professor of Film at HDK-Valand at Gothenburg University, Sweden - works in film as a mode of research and artistic practice. Her most recent work is a trilogy exploring race, gender and sexuality through archival sources: When I grow up I want to bea black man, Cause of Death and the forthcoming Loving in between.

Find out more about Jyoti Mistry here: https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/jyotimistry

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut and is brought to you in 3 languages; English, French and Portuguese.

Namibian-British filmmaker and researcher Perivi Katjavivi talks to Katarina Hedrén about the search for language, haunted sites and how it is possible and necessary to be comfortable in tension.

Perivi Katjavivi is a PhD candidate in History at University of the Western Cape, based in Namibia. He is known for the Netflix-series Emoyeni, and the films Film Festival Film and The Unseen. He has written extensibly for the Windhoek Observer, Africa is a Country and OkayAfrica on issues such as culture, identity, race and genocide.

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut and is brought to you in 3 languages; English, French and Portuguese.

In this episode Katarina Hedrén talks to Kenyan-German filmmaker/poet/still-photographer/spiritual practitioner Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann about her multi-disciplinary healing practice.

Born in Bonn, Germany and raised beneath the tall, tall trees of Nairobi, Kenya, Philippa makes healing films to inspire and transform audiences globally. A graduate of AFDA, Cape Town, she is a multi-disciplinary; straddling fiction, documentary and artist films. With a background in poetic, intimate narratives about women, childhood, memory, intergenerational trauma and the natural world, she is best known for Seeds, winner of The Ecumenical Jury Prize at Internationale Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2017 and feature-length documentary, New Moon, winner of Best Documentary at Academy Qualifying, Durban International Film Festival 2018. An alumna of Berlinale Talents 2016, IDFA Summer School 2013 (Amsterdam), Produire au Sud 2011 (Nantes) and fellow of RAW Académie 2016 (Dakar), she is currently based between Brussels and London.

To learn more about Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann, visit her website www.philippanidisiherrmann.com

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut and is brought to you in 3 languages; English, French and Portuguese.

In this conversation prolific film critic and curator Wilfred Okiche talks to Katarina Hedrén about the importance of context in film criticism and of his aim to amplify the reach of African films.

Nigerian writer Wilfred Okiche is an influential critic of African and black film. He is a member of FIPRESCI and a @RottenTomatoes-certified critic, who has attended critic programs and reported from film festivals in Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Durban and Lagos. His writing appears on numerous platforms, among them Variety, Indiwire, The Africa Report, The Continent, MUBI and OkayAfrica.

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut and is brought to you in 3 languages; English, French and Portuguese.

https://cinidb.africa/

In this rich conversation, Rwanda-born actress, playwright and director, Anisia Uzeyman, talks to Katarina Hedrén about art as legacy and proof of life, and about the definition and meaning of ethical collaboration.

Anisia Uzeyman, who lives between Paris and Los Angeles, studied drama at the Superior School of Theater in France. Anisia Uzeyman’s film directorial debut, Dreamstates - shot entirely on iPhones and starring Saul Williams, William Nadylam and Beau Sia - premiered at the LA Film Festival in 2016. She is the co-director and cinematographer of the sci-fi musical Neptune Frost, co-directed by Saul Williams, which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival 2021 and released theatrically in June 2022. As an actress Anisia starred in Alain Gomis’ award-winning film Tey, Aujourd’hui by Alain Gomis and the feature film Ayiti Mon Amour by Guetty Felin, which premiered at TIFF 2017. She has directed music videos for Sons Of An Illustrious Father ’s Opposite Of Love, Mehdi Cayenne’s Rivière and Princess Erika’s Délivrée, Saul Williams’ The Noise Came From Here and Encrypted & Vulnerable. Her first book, a poetic treatment of her original screenplay Saolomea, Saolomea, was published by Not a Cult (November 2021).

This podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut.

https://cinidb.africa/

Welcome to the Cinidb-podcast series, about African film professionals. The series, hosted by three experts in the field of African cinemas, features directors, producers, curators, critics and scholars from across the African continent and the diaspora. Each episode features one guest, who talks about their work, shares insights and reflects on the past, the present and the future of cinema in Africa and beyond. The 18-episode Cinidb-podcast series is funded by The GIZ - The German Agency for International Cooperation and the Goethe-Institut and is brought to you in 3 languages; English, French and Portuguese.