KBOO is a proud co-sponsor of the 20th Cascade Festival of African Films
The Cascade Festival of African Films honors the art and craft of filmmaking from that continent. The movies imported for the festival draw capacity crowds every year and are shown Thursdays through Saturdays at various North Portland locations through February and early March.
“The 20th festival will showcase 23 outstanding feature and documentary films from every region of the African continent,” said Mary Holmstrom, one of the event’s organizers.
It’s a film festival with one of the largest collections of African films in the Northwest and its dedicated legion of volunteers are set to celebrate its 20th year by bringing acclaimed Ethiopian film director Haile Gerima to Portland.
Gerima will open the festival, which attracted more than 5,000 filmgoers in 2009, with the showing of his Toronto Film Festival selected film, “Teza,” at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, Feb. 5. The film chronicles the return of an African intellectual to his country of birth during a repressive Marxist regime. Gerima is a director, screenwriter and producer, living in Washington, D.C. He is one of a handful of African filmmakers to earn international fame and has been a professor of film at Howard University since 1975.
Four other directors will present their films throughout the festival.
The festival honoring Black History Month runs from Feb. 5 through March 6 at the Cascade Campus’s Moriarty Auditorium (705 N. Killingsworth St.), McMenamins Kennedy School Theatre (5736 N.E. 33rd Ave.) and the Hollywood Theatre (4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd.). The Cascade Festival of African Films is free and open to the public. It features a wide range of films and special matinee days and feature nights. They include StudentFest Matinee on Feb. 18, Family Film Day on Feb. 20 and ends with Women’s Filmmakers Week.
For details on the schedule, visit: www.africanfilmfestival.org