Virtual festival available online thru March 31
The 2024 Pan African Film and Arts Festival – running February 6 to 19 in Los Angeles – has closed. The awards are all distributed, the hundreds of stars are all back in their own firmaments. The house lights are on. The seats are empty.
Yet, the one voice that matters most is saying, “It ain’t over until it’s over.”
That’s Ayuko Babu, Executive Director and co-founder of the world’s biggest Black Film Festival and Arts show, attracting hundreds of thousands of excited participants every year since its founding in 1992.
“When we’re finished here, we’re going straight to Ethiopia,” Babu said Saturday via telephone. “And we’ll be gone until about July.”
“But hold on. Our Virtual Encore Festival is available online right now,” he said. “If there’s anybody curious about what this current festival – PAFF 32 – is all about, they can get most of it online. We have our Virtual Encore Festival available there. The virtual encore is running February 20-March 31, 2024. Tickets and passes are on sale now. To join the fun and festivities, go online to www.paff.org and follow instructions. See how to download the Virtual Festival and how to pay for it. It’s all right there.”
AWARD WINNERS
Held at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza on Monday, February 19th, the annual awards ceremony was a celebration of diversity, talent, and cultural richness. The winning films stood out for their artistic merit, social relevance, and profound impact on PAFF’s audiences.
“We Grown Now,” starring Jurnee Smollett, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Lil Rel Howery and directed by Minhal Baig, took home the festival jury’s Best Feature Narrative prize.
The documentary “Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes” about the late musician-philosopher Max Roach, won the jury’s Best Feature Documentary.
Mario Van Peebles’ “Outlaw Posse” sequel to his hit western film “Posse” shared the festival’s Audience Favorite Award for Narrative Feature with the Ethiopian drama “Doka.” “Outlaw Posse” also earned the Programmers’ Award for Best Narrative Feature.
The Bob Marley biopic “Bob Marley: One Love,” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, won the Ja’Net Dubois Festival Award for Best Narrative Feature.
PAFF presented the Ja’Net DuBois Lifetime Achievement Award to producer-director-actor Bill Duke.
ACADEMY AWARDS?
Three feature films screened at PAFF 2024 are in the Academy Awards competition scheduled for March 10. The three Academy Award nominees for Best International Film are: “Io Capitano” (Senegal, Italy/Feature Narr/122m), directed by Matteo Garrone; “Goodbye Julia” (Sudan / Feature Narr/120m), directed by Mohamed Kordofani; and “Sira” (Burkina Faso/Feature Narr/122m), directed by Apolline Traoré.
(For the full list of PAFF 2024 Awards winners, go to: paff.org.)
SPECIAL MENTION
“Sacred Soil: The Piney Woods School Story,” screened at the festival on February 10, and is coming soon to Hulu/Hulu on Disney+.
On The Red Carpet, “Piney Woods” director J.J. Anderson said: “This film really…honors and observes what is required to be young, Black, and educated in America. We’re thinking about this from a mental standpoint, a physical standpoint, a scholastic standpoint, and it really puts the camera in the hands of the students.”
WRAPPING UP
Summing up the impact of PAFF 2024, the 32nd annual festival since its founding in 1992, Babu said:
“It was wonderful. We carried the spirit of Black people. We told the truth. We exposed the lies. We also had a good time. People enjoyed it. We took people around the world. It was fantastic.
“At this point, because Black people have been under siege, they love having this Black space that’s about them. About us, about our life, about what’s on our minds. That’s what we did for two weeks.”
For Virtual Festival Access: Go to paff.org to purchase individual screenings and to view the detailed information on the films available online during virtual festival from February 20th to March 31st.
