The Annual Sundance Film Festival ran from January 17-27, 2008 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance, Utah. The 11- day event featured public film screenings and parties for filmmakers at the various venues. It was organized by the Sundance Institute, founded by actor Robert Redford in 1981, as a non-profit organization dedicated to the discovery and development of independent film artists and audiences. According to Redford, “this year filmmakers are putting personal focus on issues relating to the world we live in rather than addressing them on a macro-political level.”
There were a total of 121 feature-length films selected including 87 world premieres, 14 from North America, 12 U.S premieres representing 25 countries. These films were selected from 3624 submissions. The vast number of films selected were grouped into four major competition categories: Documentary Competition, Dramatic Competition, World Documentary Competition and World Cinema Dramatic Competition. With such a diverse selection, let’s see how Africa is represented at this premier showcase for the best new films by American and International independent filmmakers.

Documentary Competition – World Premieres:

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo–by Director & Screenwriter Lisa F. Jackson.

Winner of Special Jury Prize in Documentary

Jackson travels to remote villages in the war zones of the Congo to meet rape survivors; victims of the brutal war that began in 1998, ravishing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In this moving documentary, the director gives a voice to the women and young girls who were systematically raped, kidnapped, mutilated and tortured by both foreign militias and the Congolese army. She spent 2006 in eastern DRC filming her documentary. With privileged access to the horrible realities of life in the Congo, Jackson uncovers and documents the barbaric and tragic plight of women and young girls in the country. She even conducts interviews with self-confessed rapists.

Jackson says that with the exposure to the horrific acts, she also experienced an immense example of resiliency, resistance, courage and grace. Being a victim of gang rape herself, her documentary was approached from a personal perspective, thereby connecting with the survivors and making it easier for them to open up and tell their stories that were pulverizing in intimacy and detail. The film is described as a “ journey into a literal heart of darkness, a search for survivors who pay witness to their own experiences, and break the silence.” Even though the context of the documentary was provided by interviews the film director had with various activists, priests and doctors, the core of this film is the heart-breaking testimony given by the many women and young girls who are survivors of sexual violence, horrific and some of the most barbaric acts committed by mankind. The film is aimed at giving them dignity, a face and a voice that will finally break the silence that surrounds their plight. Learn more about the film here.
Traces of the Trade: A story from the Deep North – Director: Katrina Brown; Co-Directors: Alla Kovgan, Jude Ray; Screenwriters: Katrinal Browne and Alla Kovgan.

In this documentary Katrina Browne discovers that her ancestors (the De Wolfe family) from Rhode Island were one of the largest slave-trading family in U.S history. Along with nine of her cousins, Browne retraces the Triangle Trade and gains a power perspective on the black and white divide. When the history of slavery is retold, particularly U.S history, we often hear and read about the role of the South in the slave trade. For whatever reason it was made, this documentary gives us another perspective. Whether from feelings of guilt by decedents of white slave masters, or merely for fact-finding purposes, or even according to the director, to “repair the enormous harm that our ancestors had caused.” It reveals the level of involvement of the North in Slavery, exposing it as a cornerstone of the Northern commercial life.
The team of DeWolfe ‘decendents’ travel from Bristol Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana. They want to dig up a part of history that is obviously very painful. But others don’t see it in the same way. During the documentary, they were believed to have been turned away by the locals in Ghana when they tried to join in on a Spiritual healing ceremony, because the Ghanaians found their visit to be condescending and invasive. It is one thing for African-Americans to make a pilgrimage to the Motherland to trace their history but when white people who were on the other side and oppressed and committed the most inhumane acts against the God-Given rights of African people for so many years do the same, Africans on African soil are not always as receptive. The majority of the U.S trade in slavery happened on ships in the North, with trade goods and financial backings in the North. This documentary opens up new platforms for discussion people who are not aware. Find out more about the film here.

World Cinema Documentary Competition:

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins – Director and Screenwriter: Pietra Brettkelly

Winner of World Cinema Documentary Editing

Okay, here is another adopt an African baby, make that two African babies story. Brad and Angelina’s hearts are in the right place. Even Guy and Madonna (yeah, that’s my girl) id for the right reason. But at the 2008 Sundance Festival “ The Art Star” took the term controversy to a new heights. The Director, Pietra Brettkelly is a New Zealander who was in Dafur working on a another documentary project when she came across world renowned artist Vanessa Beecroft. Their chance meeting led to the production of this documentary.

It is said that the artist went to Sudan with a camera crew because she was interested in the plight of Dafur (she heard a little bit about it on the News in NY) but then admits that she didn’t even know where Dafur was, so she never really got there. She instead found herself at an orphanage in South of Sudan where she found two malnourished twins and offered them each a Breast! This is wild! She just happened to be “swollen with milk” since she had left her own young’un back in New York. She whips it (them) out and starts feeding the twins. Here is the thing though, Beecroft claims to be trying to ‘save’ the twins, adopt them and bring them to the land of opportunities, yet she calculatingly photographed herself with the twins suckling her breasts! She calls the photograph a souvenir!

The reviews of this documentary are very controversial to say the least, even Beecroft’s anthropologist husband has questions of his own: “is she motivated by humanitarian impulses, or is she mesmerized by the exotic allure of underprivileged orphans”? I will leave you with this insert from the Washington Post, “The iconographic portrait, of a white-robed Madonna and two black babies, is arresting and disturbing, raising questions about celebrity, race, colonialism, international adoption. Exploitation or liberation?” The photographs are for sale through her gallery in Milan. Beecroft says they sell for $50,000 each. Most of the collectors have been Americans.
Cinema Dramatic Category:

Sleepwalking – Directed by Bill Maher, co-produced by Theron

The ‘Queen’ of South Africa, Charlize Theron, not only starred in this film screened at the 2008 Sundance Festival, she is also one of its producers. She plays Joleen, a mother who is forced out of her boyfriend’s house when he is busted for growing marijuana in their home. She and her daughter Tara (played by AnnaSophia Robb) move in with her younger brother who happens to be on the ‘slow side’. After the breakup, emotionally distraught Joleen hooks up with a truck driver on the rebound. She leaves her ‘lil too grown’ of a daughter with her brother.

Tara is lost to child services when her uncle is faced with some hard times. He rescues her and pretending to be father and daughter, they embark on somewhat of a road trip. As they approach the family farm, Uncle James (Joleen’s brother) begins to have flash backs of his and his sister’s traumatic past. In the finale of the film, James must ‘reverse his longtime acceptance of a half-life spent “sleepwalking”. Although the film does not get rave reviews, Theron looks great as usual and attended the festival with long time boyfriend Stuart Townsend. I am sure her name alone will get people checking out the film.