AFRIKAMERA 2024: Believe

From 2024 to 2027, the film festival AFRIKAMERA  – Current Cinema from Africa places its focus on four distinct areas—Believe, Change, Reflect and Create—in examining the diverse, inspiring, pioneering and often contradictory ways of seeing the key sociopolitical questions relating to the present and future of the African continent. Believe is this year’s focus and centers around films that grapple with questions of faith, spirituality and self-empowerment. These questions leave their mark in people’s private lives and social relations in many different ways and are frequently the trigger for political conflicts – while also forming a frequent theme for the new generation of filmmakers. Alongside this focus, current African cinema highlights will be shown that premiered at major international film festivals and received prizes there.

The story of the Beta Israel or Falasha is largely unknown here in Germany. A religious/ethnic group whose members originally stem from Ethiopia, most of their number emigrated or were forced to emigrate to Israel at the end of the 1970s. Unlike many other stories of the Jewish diaspora on the African continent, that of the Falasha is well represented in film. The special program BLACK JEWS – BETA ISRAEL takes the example of the Ethiopian Jews as a way of grappling with the complex history of Judaism in Africa and its connections to the Israel of today. The program encompasses both features and documentaries on the subject and a panel discussion. Entry to all events in the focus is free.