Channel ED to screen African documentary films

A world first will be taking place this month when a full week of African documentary films are broadcast across sub-Saharan Africa on DStv ED (channel 190) and GOtv (channel 65). 

This unique film event will see a diverse and exciting range of films screened across 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, to coincide with the Durban International Film Festival, the largest film festival in South Africa that takes place from 17 – 27 July.

The AfriDocs Film Week will connect the largest film festival in Africa through a “film festival at home” featuring documentary films from thirteen countries in Africa – D.R.C., Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. 

“So many documentary films have been shot in Africa, but very few have been seen by African audiences”, says AfriDocs Executive Producer Don Edkins from Steps in Cape Town, “this heralds a new era of distribution for the continent.”

Films by African filmmakers Idrissa Guiro, Sani Elhadj, Licinio Azevedo, Rehad Desai, Judy Kibinge, Andrey Samoute Diarra, Osvalde Lewat, together with filmmakers Mika Karismäki, Thierry Michel, Roger Ross Williams, Abby Ginsberg and Göran Olssonamong others, will be seen for the first time by a wide audience through this collaboration.

Five of the films screening at the Durban Film Festival (DIFF) will also be part of the programme, including the award-winning Miners Shot Down, Concerning Violence, I, Afrikaner, The Irresistible Rise of Moise Katumbi and Soft Vengeance.

These African documentaries tell a range of stories; from films about great African artists, such as singer and activist Miriam Makeba (Mama Africa) and the Malian photographer Malik Sibidé(Dolce Vita Africana), to political/historical films on leaders Patrice Lumumba and Liberian President Sirleaf Johnson, as well as films about revolutionaries, farmers, gangsters, illegal immigrants, and gay and lesbian activists.

This week-long film event is a special broadcast project from AfriDocs, the first weekly prime-time documentary strand broadcasting across Africa. Every Tuesday night on ED (DStv channel 190) and GOtv (channel 65), AfriDocs screens top African documentaries to 49 countries by satellite, and terrestrially to an additional 100 cities in eight countries. 

AfriDocs is an initiative of the multi-awarded South African documentary production and distribution company, Steps, in partnership with the Bertha Foundation.

Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Director of Social Impact Media at Bertha Philanthropies, said that the Bertha Foundation is proud to partner with Steps to help bring great documentary films to audiences across Africa, “connecting documentary film to African audiences is something we have been hoping to do for some time now, and this is an ideal platform for that.”