ANOTHER FESTIVAL for "A Zest for Life"

The Festival International du Film Panafricain of Cannes, France has accepted our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, for their upcoming (April 2013) festival.  This will be a nice event for us.  Not only will we get to know filmmakers from Africa and people interested in the African diaspora, but, well, I used to live in southern France so it will feel almost like a homecoming to me.

A homecoming of sorts, of course.  The French Riviera has changed tremendously since I was a teenager.  Now, what you find is huge hotels and wall to wall tourists on the beaches, whereas when I was young....

This is the view most people see of Cannes--a beach with wall to wall people.

This is a fairly young festival.  The 2013 fest will be its 10th edition.  Interestingly, both of the films I especially liked at the Black International Cinema, Berlin (Dar He and Africa:  the Beat) also were featured in this festival.

 In 2012, the festival showed six feature length films, six shorts, and seven documentaries.  It's clear that a lot of the filmmakers are originally from African countries but they did their filmmaking (and probably also went to film school) in France.  Another large batch of filmmakers came from, and filmed in, Moracco.

A more normal street where you're likely to see more French people.

The rest hailed from the United States, the West Indies, Switzerland...a very international bunch.
We DO anticipate screening A Zest for Life in the United States, but festivals here take a long time to make their selections.  In the meantime, this gives me a great excuse to go back to Europe after spending a few months in California.  I'm looking forward to it.

Tour de la Castre, in the older part of town.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Toro Mata:  the traditional song and dance, plus more modern versions.