By Benjamin Njoku

…Why I established the film festival —Kelechi Eke

The beautiful city of Dallas, in Texas, the Unite States will come alive from Friday, June 30, as the second edition of the prestigious the African Film Festival,TAFF, kicks off with the screening of Rogers Ofime’s action thriller, “ Oloibiri” as the opening  film.

Kelechi Eke

The festival holding at the Dallas City Performance Hall, will climax on the 3rd of July, with the awards night.

While “Oloibiri” will be screened as the opening film, Uganda’s award-winning film, “Remand” will close the festival.  Also, screening during the festival is South African crime film, “Call Me Thief.” The film was submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th  Academy Awards but was not nominated.

Making this revelation to HVP, the festival director and founder, Kelechi Eke said, they are leaving no stone unturned in their bid to record a successful outing this year, as not less than 200 film makers from over 40 countries are expected to storm Dallas for the festival.

Already, the city of Dallas, is said to be bubbling with life as the African film makers and stars have started arriving there ahead of June 30, opening of the festival. The workshop and training session commenced since 24th of June. The founder, Kelechi Eke speaks on the highlights of the festival, its impact on the blacks in diaspora  and his expectation this year.

My expectations at this year’s TAFF!

My expectation is to have a better festival than last year, with more film makers and African movie fans in attendance; and with more media coverage globally. We received better films this year, and some from very well-known film makers.

We will be screening “Call Me Thief” – a film that represented South Africa at the Oscars Academy Awards this year. “Oloibiri”, which is the opening film. It won multiple film accolades in Africa. Our closing night film, “Remand”, is about the justice system in Uganda as told by Golden Globe Award winner, Angela Bassett. We are expecting about 200 film makers from over 40 countries at The African Film Festival in Dallas this year.

Why I established the African film festival in diaspora

The African film industry is growing by the day. New creative film makers are emerging; better quality film production is on the rise. Yet, we do not have enough platforms to showcase African films and celebrate our film makers. There are several other challenges that African film makers face, ranging from lack of adequate finances to fund a film – to lacking distribution after managing to complete one – to piracy when the film finally makes it out there.

These facts make it discouraging for African film makers to even bother to produce another motion picture. But the passion and drive that many of us have continue to push us to not quit. Good quality films need a large budget for production and marketing just like we observe from our Hollywood counterparts where millions of dollars are spent in making one film.

TAFF founder, Kelechi Eke presenting gift to a film maker

This makes their films unbeatable with quality in the film market. And to compete with such productions in various film festivals, makes it look as though we do not have films that are good enough. We do. In fact, some of our story lines are better. But we do not have the luxury to pay for the best visual effects. If given a quarter of the funds used to make some of Hollywood films, the African film maker could probably make three equally quality films. It is therefore difficult to compete with such films at a given festival.

Hence, TAFF is born to showcase and celebrate some of our best films that would normally be overshadowed by the wealthier Hollywood productions.

TAFF as a welcome development among the blacks in America

TAFF came when many blacks in the diaspora  are rather nostalgic about Africa. Many African Americans were in quest of their ancestral link in Africa. Many Africans were talking about moving back home. So it was very welcome and one of our screening venues last year was at the Pan African Connection – a spot in South Dallas that sells African arts and educative materials on African American history – owned by an African American whose preferred nationality is Ghana.

Build up to TAFF 2017

The build up has been exciting. For the first time in the history of film festivals, TAFF, will make a short film and screen it on the closing night. Many are looking forward to being a part of this unique initiative which aims at promoting teamwork and collaboration among film makers. We just concluded our auditions for the short film which we will shoot and edit within five days before the festival opens to the public on June 30.

Last year, I introduced “Trailer of the Day” which allows the teaser of each selected film to have a day spotlight before the festival begins. These trailers are shared on all our Instagram and Facebook pages and various Whatsapp groups. I would like to say this has never been done before by any festival.