Best Narrative Feature – Borders (Frontières) (Burkina Faso)
Directed by: Woye Apolline Traoré
In this female road movie, award-winning Burkinabe director, Apolline Traoré, poignantly eplores the developing friendships among four women from different African countries as they travel by bus across a gorgeous West African landscape. Hadjara is a Senagalese traveller buying goods for the women’s association she is a part of. Her paths cross with Emma, a merchant from Ivory Coast who has been on the road for 15 years and Micha, a Nigerian living in Burkina Faso, travelling home for her sister’s wedding and a reconciliation with her family. Finally, they meet up with Sali, a young student from southern Burkina Faso who is unknowingly transporting drugs for her deceitful fiancé. While it is an everyday journey for the women, it is nonetheless fraught with peril, but through their friendship and solidarity, they find strength and resilience.
Best Director – First Feature Narrative : Kalushi (South Africa)
Directed by: Mandlakayise Dube
A true story of a 19-year-old street vendor who, after he is brutally beaten by police, goes into exile to join the South African liberation movement in their fight against apartheid following the 1976 Soweto uprisings. Through the turn of events, he became a hero of the movement and an international icon of the struggle against apartheid.
Best Documentary Feature – Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me (US)
Directed by: Samuel D. Pollard
In his first major film documentary to examine the vast talent of singer, dancer, musician, comedian, mime, actor, entertainer extraordinaire, and arguably one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived, Sammy Davis, Jr., we witness his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th century America. Davis had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary -so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale; and yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory. Featuring new interviews with people who knew and loved him, such as Quincy Jones, Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Kim Novak, with never-before – seen photographs from Davis’ vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, this film tour -de- force explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.
Best Narrative Short – Kyenvu (Yellow) (Uganda)
Directed by: Kemiyondo Coutinho
An independent, feminist woman meets a man on a transport. Though he challenges her ideals, he eventually wins her over through a series of hilarious events – only for their budding love to be tested.
Best Documentary Short – Mama (US)
Directed by: Nicholas Brennan
Meet Gertrude Nakanwagi, one of the infamous traditional birth attendants of Kayunga District in central Uganda. Women travel long distances to deliver their children with Gertrude, but in a country where 15 mothers die daily giving birth, is this the safest choice? For the dozens of mothers who visit Gertrude each week, the answer is yes. This is how life, for many of us, begins.
Programmers’ Award – Narrative or Documentary: Short Lalo’s House (Haiti/US)
Directed by: Kelley Kali
Inspired by true events, “Lalo’s House” follows the relentless courage of Manouchka, a 14-year-old Haitian girl, and her 5-year-old sister, Phara, who are abducted and thrown into an underground prostitution network that is posing as a Catholic orphanage. Force to grow up prematurely, Manouchka must fight to save Phara and escape the fraudulent nun, Sister Francine, who holds them captive.
Programmers’ Award – Documentary: Barrow – Freedom Fighter (Barbados)
Directed by: Marcia Weekes
“What does it profit a man to be Prime Minister of Barbados, or of the West Indies? What does it mean? It means nothing if you lo se your soul and achieve those objectives.”
Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow The passionate docu-drama illuminating the courage of one man who relentlessly preached a gospel of economic self-reliance and self-respect to the people of Barbados, his native country, and beyond. He defied the statusquo, confronted racism and classicism, fought colonial oppression and selflessly led his people to political and economic freedom. A hero lives for the other…that was The Right Excellent Errol Walton Barrow, Father of Independence, Reformer and National Hero of Barbados.
Programmers’ Award – Narrative Feature: Love Jacked (South Africa)
Directed by: Alfons Adetuyi
A warm family comedy centered around Maya, a headstrong 28-year-old with artistic ambitions and her father Ed, who wants a dutiful daughter to run the family store. Ed is shocked when Maya, asserting her independence, decides to travel to Africa for inspiration and returns with a fiancé.
PAFF Directors’ Award – Feature Documentary (TIE) King of Stage: The Woodie King Jr. Story (US)
Directed by: Juney Smith
The awe-inspiring story of legendary theatre producer, Woodie King, Jr., who is the founder and producing director of the New Federal Theatre and National Black Touring Circuit in New York City. He has presented over 200 productions in the New Federal Theatre’s 47 seasons, which began in 1970. In addition to producing Broadway shows such as
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” “What the Winesellers Buy”and “Checkmates,” the life of this living legend provides a window into the history of Black life in the 20th Centuryand highlightsthe Black arts movement, of which he was a commanding presence. This giant of a man facilitated theatre artists of every discipline. Many of the actors have become household names such as Denzel Washington, Phylicia Rashad, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Viola Davis, Debbie Allen, Glynn Turman, Laurence Fishburne and many more.
Maynard (US)
Directed by: Samuel D. Pollard
He was Obama before Obama. Maynard Holbrook Jackson became the first Black mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in 1973 and this film is anexploration into a man who had dreams and ambitions to be a public servant for his people, seeing that it was the next logical step in the journey that had been started by Dr. King and so many others who blazed the trail during the years of horrific segregation. Family and colleagues, including Bill Clinton, Andrew Young and Al Sharpton, tell the epic story of a dynamic leader and his legacy of honor and progress.
PAFF Directors’ Award – Feature Narrative: The Train of Salt and Sugar (Mozambique/South Africa)
Directed by: Licínio Azevedo
During the Mozambican civil war in the 1980s, a train under military guard, led by a mystic Sangoma military commander, must transport its passengers and goods 500 miles through apartheid South African-backed guerrilla-held territory. As rivalries form betweenthe soldiers, and friendships between the passengers, violence looms, both on board and from the rapacious rebels. With the threatof battle pending, romance blossoms against the stunning backdrop of the African countryside.
Audience Award – Documentary Short: ’63 Boycott (US)
Directed by:Gordon Quinn
On October 22, 1963, more than 250,000 students boycotted the Chicago Public Schools to protest racial segregation. Many marched through the city calling for the resignation of School Superintendent Benjamin Willis who placed trailers, dubbed “Willis Wagons,”on playgrounds and parking lots of overcrowded Black schools rather than let them enroll in nearby white schools. Blending unseen 16mm footage of the march shot by Kartemquin founder, Gordon Quinn, with participants’reflections today, ’63 Boycott connects the forgotten story of one of the largest northern civil rights demonstrations to contemporary issuesaround race, education, school closings and youth activism.
Audience Award- Documentary Feature: Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me (US)
Directed by: Samuel D. Pollard
(Synopsis already indicated above)
Audience Award- Narrative Short: For Evan’s Sake (US)
Directed by: Kirstin Lorin
Evan, an underachieving, overworked production assistant has a blow-up on set after a series of micro aggressions send him off the deep end. In order to keep his job, he’s assigned to therapy. Evan tries to maintain his sanity while dealing with his racially insensitivecoworkers, inappropriate family members, woke roommates, an interdimensional traveling homeless man, a wise stayr, and himself.
Audience Award – Narrative Feature: Muslimah’s Guide to Marriage (US)
Directed by: Aminah Bakeer Abdul-Jabbaar
Muslimah Muhammad, a twenty-something African American orthodox Musliwoman who lives in Inglewood, CA, has seven days and fourteen hours left in her Iddah (Muslim separation) before she willofficially be divorced from her cheating husband. Knowing that the divorce would upset her religious father and the local Muslim community, Muslimah works diligently to try to fix her broken marriage before it is too late.
