Algeciras (Cádiz), (EFE).- The twentieth edition of the Tarifa and Tangier African Film Festival (FCAT) has managed to gather some 20,000 spectators, both in person at its headquarters in Cádiz and Morocco as well as on the Filmin platform and in the projections of the “School Space”.
This edition, which ended on Sunday, May 7, has been marked by the return of the programming to Tangier, with which the festival has reunited the two shores through culture, one of the few cross-border events in the south of Europe, highlights the organization in a note.
The extensions of Ceuta and El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) were added to the main venues, in an edition in which the ”online’ public has surpassed the spectators of the festival “in situ”.
International projection
In its international projection, the festival has reached countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Nigeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Madagascar or the Congo, as well as American countries such as Mexico and Puerto Rico.
The director of the FCAT, Mane Cisneros, emphasizes and appreciates that “this festival has risen year after year by an extraordinary and committed human team, both by the organization and by the workers of the Tarifa City Council”.
The 20th edition of the FCAT has programmed more than fifty films divided into two official competition sections –“Hypermetropia” and “In Brief”-, plus the parallel ones: “Las Tres Orillas”, which unites cinema from the Spanish shore, the African and the Hispanic American, and the retrospective “It is at the end of the old rope that the new one is woven”, where African filmmakers and experts programmed essential films from the past and present.
The Hypermetropia films are the ones that had the most attendance in theaters, although the most viewed title, which was also on Filmin, was “Leil Khargi” (“Outside the Night”, Egypt, 2018. Ahmad Abdalla), from the retrospective section, followed by from the opening film, “Sous le figues” (“Among the fig trees”. Tunisia, 2022, Erige Sahire), screened in Tangier and Tarifa.
More than 8,000 euros in prizes
This edition has awarded more than 8,000 euros in prizes, such as the Al Tarab award for the best fiction feature film endowed with two thousand euros, which the international jury awarded to “Father’s Day” (Kivu Ruhorahoza); the Casa África award for best documentary feature film -endowed with a thousand euros- for “Coconut Head Generation” (Alain Kassandra) and the award for best short film -with an Andalusian jury and endowed with 500 euros- for “Jua Kali”, by Joash Omandi.
The AECID/Acerca de la Cooperación Española jury prize -three thousand euros- went to the documentary “Au Cimetière de la pellicule” (“The film cemetery”), by Thierno Souleymane Diallo; and the TV5 Monde Award for the best feature film -voted by the public and with a prize of 2,000 euros- went to “Sous le figues”, by Erige Sehiri.
Honorary acting awards also went to the winning film “Father’s day”, actress Mediatrice Kayitesi and actor Cedric Ishimwe. EFE