When Alice Stephens came to Columbia College to teach film in 1993, she quickly decided that the school needed a festival of African films. “They have a humanness,” says Stephens, who has a PhD in psychology. “The storytelling tradition is very powerful there. We need to expand our view. It’s very limiting if you’re just getting Cineplex Odeon movies.”
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Last year she organized the first African Film Festival, and it drew more than 3,000 people over one weekend. “There was such a tremendous response that we couldn’t accommodate everyone.” So this year’s festival has been expanded to two weekends and now includes African-American and Caribbean films.
The second annual African Film Festival takes place over the next two weekends, April 19 through 28. It starts at 7 this Friday with Sugar Cane Alley, a 1983 film from Martinique directed by Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season); it will be screened in Columbia College’s Ferguson Theater, 600 S. Michigan. This weekend’s other movies will be shown from 9 AM to 8 PM Saturday and 10 AM to 5 PM Sunday. (Sunday is dedicated to children’s films.) All screenings are free and will be held at Columbia’s Collins Theater, 624 S. Michigan, the Hokin Hall Theater, 623 S. Wabash, and the Ferguson Theater. For more information, see the Section Two movie listings or call 663-1600, ext. 5287.
