Quartiers Lointains : Season 6
AFROFUTURISTIK

This One Went To The Market by Jim Chuchu

Fiction - 2018 - Kenya - 4 min

Synopsis

A young Kenyan artist devises a sly plan to conquer the art world abroad. Will it work?

Biography

Jim Chuchu (1982) is a filmmaker, musician and visual artist who lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya. Jim’s photographs debuted in the exhibition "Precarious Imaging: Visibility and Media around African Queerness" at RAW Material Company, a space for art and culture in Dakar, as part of Dak'Art 2014. The same year, he co-founded Nest Collective, a multidisciplinary arts collective based in Nairobi, Kenya, that creates work in film, music, fashion, visual arts and literature, including the critically acclaimed queer anthology film Stories of Our Lives, which was banned in Kenya for “promoting homosexuality”. Despite the ongoing ban in the country, the film has so far screened in more than 80 countries and won numerous awards such as the Jury Prize at the Berlinale Teddy Awards 2015.

His photographic and video work has since been exhibited and screened at MoMA, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Royal Pavilion and Museums, Guggenheim Bilbao, the Vitra Design Museum, and is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

Jim co-founded HEVA in 2015, an East African creative enterprise fund based in Kenya that invests in the creative economy across East Africa. Since its creation, HEVA has invested more than 3 million dollars in the East African creative economy, enabled the innovation of financial models specific to the region, the creation of networks, exchanges, training and opportunities for young entrepreneurs, and seeks the implementation of political and legal reforms to improve the sector.

Jim is currently co-founding director of Nest Collective — a project accompanied by a partnership with the International Inventories Programm, an international research and database project that has so far catalogued an inventory of 30,000 Kenyan cultural objects held in museums and public institutions around the globe — and HEVA, allowing him to reflect on intervention strategies as well as the perspectives to which he has access as a co-founding partner.

Hello Rain by C.J. Obasi

Fiction - 2018 - Nigeria - 30 min

Synopsis

A "ScienEst Witch" uses an alchemical combination of juju and technology to create wigs that grant her and her friends supernatural powers. But when their powers become uncontrollable, she must stop them by any means.

Biography

C.J. Obasi, also known as "Fiery" or "The Fiery One", wrote and directed the features OJUJU and O-TOWN, both of which screened at numerous festivals including the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, the Shockproof Film Festival in Prague, New Voices in Black Film Festival in New York, Göteborg Film Festival and the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, and were acclaimed by Screen Anarchy, IndieWire and The Hollywood Reporter. He has won numerous awards and nominations including Best Nigerian Film (OJUJU), the African Movie Academy Awards (African Oscars), and the Trailblazer Award at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA).

His short film Hello Rain is an adaptation of a short story by Nnedi Okorafor titled "Hello, Moto". The short entered competitions at the International Short Film Festival as well as 30 others, including the Fantasia International Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Mention, and the BFI London Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Short Film Award. C.J. Obasi is known for taking part, with Groupe Ouest, in Less is More (LIM), a development lab, with his feature project Mami Wata. [RETROSPECTIVE NOTE: Juju Stories, co-directed with Michael Omonua and Abba Makama, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022. In 2023, his feature Mami Wata won Best Cinematography at Sundance and at FESPACO.]