By Julia Cosgrove  August 10th, 2010 12:32 pm  |  Comments (1)

In Afar’s September/October issue, which hits newsstands today, writer Frank Bures tells the story of Nigeria’s booming film industry, Nollywood. While researching the piece, Bures went on set with Kunle Afolayan, a young actor/director aiming to improve the quality of Nollywood films. Afolayan’s sophomore effort, The Figurine, swept the Africa Movie Academy Awards earlier this year. Here’s a trailer for that movie, and an excerpt of an interview with Afolayan, in which he talks about the influence of his filmmaker father and why he decided to become an actor.

By April Kilcrease  August 2nd, 2010 6:00 am  |  Comments (0)

Few cities have been so adored in cinema as Paris. At the 10th annual Cinéma au Clair de Lune film festival, sit in the moonlight and watch classic movies on location. From August 4 to 22, thirteen films will be projected on outdoor screens throughout the city. In honor of the French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, who passed away earlier this year, the festival opens with his romantic drama Full Moon in Paris.

Aug 4   Full Moon in Paris by Eric Rohmer at Butte Montmartre, Square Louise-Michel

Aug 5   Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard at Jardin des Champs-Elysees

Aug 6   Le Péril Jeune by Cedric Klapisch at Parc Montsouris

Aug 7   La Bête Humaine by Jean Renoir at Parc Andre Citroen

Aug 8   Diva by Jean-Jacques Beineix at Jardins du Trocadero

Aug 12   The Hunchback of Notre Dame by William Dieterle at Place des Vosges, Square Louis XIII

Aug 13   Lily, Aime-Moi by Maurice Dugowson at Ménilmontant

Aug 14   2 Days in Paris by Julie Delpy at Parc de Choisy

Aug 15   Fernandel the Dressmaker by Jean Boyer at Place de la Bourse

Aug 19   Love Songs by Christophe Honoré at Esplanade des Invalides

Aug 20   Lost in Transit by Philippe Lioret at Place des Fêtes

Aug 21   A Matter of Resistance by Jean-Paul Rappeneau at Pelouse de Reuilly

Aug 22   The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry at Place René Cassin

By Julia Cosgrove  July 29th, 2009 6:09 pm  |  Comments (0)

The crowd at OppiKoppi.

For the premier issue of Afar, I wrote about bunny chow, a South African take-out dish. During the course of my research, Afar’s cofounder Joe Diaz tipped me off to a film titled Bunny Chow, about a road trip to OppiKoppi music festival.

Held in the bush of the northern Limpopo province, the left-of-center music festival marks its 15th anniversary this month, with performances by such South African rock acts as Kidofdoom, Steadyrock, and Fokofpolisiekar. If you’re in South Africa, grab some bunny chow in Durban and hightail it to the bushveld.

OppiKoppi photo by ftbester. CC 2.0

By Derk Richardson  July 17th, 2009 5:06 pm  |  Comments (0)

In 1971, French film director Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman, And Now My Love) presented Empress Farah, the wife of Iran’s Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, with an extraordinary gift—an 18-minute homage to the history, geography, and culture of Iran.

Reportedly funded by a multinational petroleum-pipeline construction firm, the beautifully edited film is as masterfully complex as it is blatantly romantic. Scenes from everyday life in then-modernizing Iran are interspersed with footage of glorious landscapes, architecture, and antiquities, accompanied by Francis Lai’s psychedelic-tinged French pop score, a period piece itself.

Given the changes wrought in the region over the past 38 years, this long-obscure documentary is probably a far more fascinating and provocative travelogue now than it was then. The film is one of the gems in the Internet collection of the Academic Film Archive of North America.

Watch the full film here: Iran (1971).