ArtMattan Productions would like to announce the acquisition of two new
titles in its library of films from the African Diaspora:
HARAMUYA by Drissa Toure. 35mm - 87min - 1995. A co-production Burkina
Faso/France.
Festivals:
FESPACO 1995, official selection Cannes 1995 "Un Certain Regard", first
screened in the US in 1995 during the Third Annual Contemporary African
Diaspora Film Festival in New York.
Film Synopsis:
Ouagadougou, its buildings and shantytowns
Wealth in a modern town and poverty in the suburbs
Through Fousseini -- a Muslim firmly attached to his faith and traditions
and his family HARAMUYA draws a picture of Ouagadougou in the traps of
modernism and traditionalism. Fousseini tries to take care of his family
according to the old precepts and the code of honor inherited from his
ancestors. One of his sons is a cinema projectionist and supports all the
family against the will of his wife. The other son idles around all day
long
in Ouagadougou, looking for a girlfriend.
HARAMUYA is an urban chronicle which presents a portrait gallery,
intertwines
situations and characters and builds up a colorful and funny mosaic: the
keeper of the brothel who quits everything to follow her daughter, the man
thrown in jail because he mingled goats, grass and marijuana, the Lebanese
transport agent always on the watch for illicit trading, the corrupted
policeman and the other honest policeman, the scheming police snitch, and
the
town always there.
CANDOMBE by Rafael Deugenio. 16mm - 16min - 1993. A docu-drama from Uruguay,
in Spanish with English subtitles.
Festivals:
First screened in the US in 1996 during the Fourth Annual Contemporary
African Diaspora Film Festival in New York.
Film Synopsis:
More than two hundred years ago, there was an influx into Uruguay of slaves
from Africa whom, after being freed, continued to make up the poorest and
most marginalised strata in society. Fernado Nunez, a black man, a musician,
and a maker of drums, sees himself as the heir to "Candombe", an important
social and cultural legacy from his slave forefathers. The official history
and culture of Uruguay, on the other hand, which has never acknowledged this
contribution to the degree which it deserves, continues to marginalise
expressions of black culture. Fernando Nunez and his friends from the
Barrio
Sur back street quarter of Montevideo have decided to fight to keep these
important cultural roots alive in the consciousness of the Uruguayan people.
For more information about these titles as well as other titles in ArtMattan
Productions catalog, please contact us at artMattan@aol.com. Tel (212)
749-6020, Fax (212) 316-6020.
In-Reply-To: 199709291452.HAA12130@abraham.xc.org