AFRIKAMERA 2025: CHANGE

This year's focus on CHANGE centres on films that address common gender roles and their structural and social implications, questioning existing power relations and established norms.
The emphasis is on films by female/female-identified directors.

In addition, highlights of current African cinema that have premiered and won awards at major international festivals will be shown.
There will also be several short film programmes, a concert special with AFROTRONIX (Afrofuturistic Saharan electro) and a film programme at Maaya, as well as various talks and networking events.

SPOTLIGHT ON WINDHOEK will follow directly after this year's festival edition on 19 November with a special programme as part of the anniversary programme for 25 years of the Windhoek-Berlin city partnership at Sinema Transtopia.

From the programme:

AFRIKAMERA opens with PROMIS LE CIEL/ PROMISED SKY (Tunisia, France, Qatar 2025) by Tunisian-French director Erige Sehiri. Ivorian pastor Marie, young mother Naney and student Jolie meet in Tunis. They form a special community in which each of the women tries in her own way to build a new life for herself. When they take in four-year-old Kenza, whose parents died while fleeing their country, their solidarity is put to the test.

• In the presence of the director
  

In ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL by Rungano Nyoni (Zambia, Great Britain, Ireland 2024), the unwritten law that one should not speak ill of the dead is put to the test. As Shula drives home late at night in her car, she suddenly finds a dead body lying on the road – it is her old uncle Fred. In the course of the funeral ceremony, which lasts several days, she and her cousins gradually bring to light the family's open secrets, which their aunts would have preferred to bury with Uncle Fred.
The film is a portrait of Zambia's matriarchal society and tells an impressive story of the lasting trauma of sexual abuse and intergenerational alienation.

With UNE SI LONGUE LETTRE (Senegal 2024) by Senegalese director Angèle Diabang, AFRIKAMERA presents the film adaptation of Mariama Bâ's successful novel (1979). The film centres on Ramatoulaye, a 50-year-old teacher whose husband unexpectedly marries a second wife – her daughter's best friend, of all people. In letters to her friend, she reflects on love, disappointment, female solidarity, emancipation and the conflict between tradition and modernity. UNE SI LONGUE LETTRE was the sensational hit of the summer at the West African box office.

Set in the imaginary African kingdom of Ganzurgu, KATANGA, LA DANSE DES SCORPIONS (Dani Kouyaté, Burkina Faso 2025) is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Shot in black and white and narrated in Mooré, Dani Kouyaté gives this timeless universal story of power and political intrigue a new look by deliberately treating it as a fairy tale with references to the present day in a decidedly African context.
KATANGA was the first Burkinabe contribution in 28 years to win the Yennenga Golden Stallion Grand Prize at FESPACO 2025.

AFRIKAMERA Special: AFROTRONIX live + film programme at MAAYA

Afrotronix is the Afrofuturistic project of Chadian producer and musician Caleb Rimtobaye. Equipped with the DOM – a helmet that symbolises the updated knowledge of his ancestors – he combines electronic music with urban fashion, contemporary dance and digital art in his live shows. Musically, Afrotonix are celebrated worldwide for their Saharan electro and have performed at over 130 major festivals to date.

Film programme:

BETWEEN US AND SILENCE
Brenda Akele Jorde & David Simon Groß (Germany 2025) The film accompanies Yara, a young woman from Mozambique who breaks the taboo of talking publicly about her mental health.

BLACK JOY
Kemi Fatoba (Germany 2024) Through intimate conversations, archival footage and immersive storytelling, BLACK JOY offers insights into how Black communities around the world cultivate and live ‘joy’ as a form of resistance and liberation.

AFRIKAMERA – CURRENT CINEMA FROM AFRICA

• The AFRIKAMERA – CURRENT CINEMA FROM AFRICA festival is an initiative of the toucouleur e.V. association, a group of German and African cultural professionals who are committed to promoting intercultural dialogue between Africa and Germany.
  
• AFRIKAMERA has been taking place in Berlin since 2008 with annually changing thematic focuses and sees itself as a platform for contemporary African cinema in the capital. In order to be able to represent African cinema in all its diversity, AFRIKAMERA cooperates with the major African film festivals from Marrakesh to Durban.
  
• AFRIKAMERA – Current Cinema from Africa is under the patronage of Dr Uschi Eid.