The 8th Annual Tuscaloosa Africana Film Festival will take place Saturday, Feb. 29, from 6 to 10 p.m. at Central High School.

Eight years ago, Thad Ulzen and Bill Foster decided to bring the top African films to the Tuscaloosa community. Over the years, students, families and organizations have gathered at the Tuscaloosa Africana Film Festival, which showcases selected acclaimed films from the African continent and the African diaspora.

The festival’s goal is to allow African filmmakers to present their stories through movies to people who are not Africans, said Ulzen, the associate dean for academic affairs of the College of Community Health Sciences and the department chair of psychiatry.

“It’s a part of the film world that we are not exposed to very much in the United States, but it’s a very vibrant world of film,” Ulzen said.

Both non-profit organizations presenting the event, the Edward A. Ulzen Memorial Foundation (EAUMF) and Afram South Inc., support education and public health initiatives in Ghana, West Africa and West Alabama. Ulzen and Foster are passionate about bringing African cultures to the Tuscaloosa community through film.

When picking which films to showcase, Foster, the executive director of Afram South Inc., said they strived to lift up the films that are not normally seen in the mass media offerings in America. 

“We wanted our audience to experience the rich milieu that African film and African filmmakers offer to the world,” Foster said. “Right now, African films are mostly seen in Europe and in Africa. They’re really [not] seen in America unless you see it in a festival or you have some films that appear on Netflix that Netflix picks up.”

There will be four movies presented: two features and two shorts. The variety of movies includes the aftermath of war, struggles of modern-day slavery, urban life in Lagos and more. 

“It’s important for people to see and experience other cultural values and other cultural experiences, be exposed to different cultures and different issues that people are dealing with throughout the world, and through that experience, we find that we have a lot of commonalities,” Foster said.

The festival is to honor both Black History Month and Women’s History Month. The organizers decided to expand this year, honoring Women’s History Month with a festival to be held March 28.

“We had so many films that we wanted to share with the community that we decided to also emphasize Women’s History Month to expand our film offerings, to provide films dealing with the important role African women have played throughout the years,” Foster said.

Lisa Keyes, the executive director of the Tuscaloosa Sister Cities International organization, said the organization’s agenda is to foster international friendship and understanding. She said the organization has been active with the festival since the beginning.

The night of the festival is a delightful evening filled with moving and inspirational films, Keyes said.

“Our history is so rich and deep, and our culture is so rich and deep,” Keyes said. “So when you have an event like this that celebrates not only Black History Month, but also women in history, and the culture of Alabama and this area of West Alabama, it’s really good to celebrate the cultural ties that we have [to] hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Each story is important to tell, and each story is important to celebrate.”

Emily Shea, a junior majoring in creative media, knows what it takes to host a film festival through her experience as the programming director for the Black Warrior Film Festival.

She said she is passionate about minority representation in the media. It’s upsetting to think that people aren’t getting opportunities because of how they look, she said.

“I think that everyone should attend these festivals just to see how many incredible ideas there can be by different bodies and different personalities and different cultural perspectives, because if everything is told by a straight white man, then we’re not really going to get anywhere,” Shea said. “I think it’s really interesting to see how the same story can be told with lots of different perspectives and different cultural backgrounds.”

The goal of the festival is to add to the increasing cosmopolitan nature of life in Tuscaloosa and to enrich the cultural life in Tuscaloosa to make it a more interesting place to live in, Ulzen said.

“It’s also useful, even for African Americans … to see the kinds of issues that Africans are dealing with that they are detecting in their movies – some of which may be similar to issues that we are dealing with here in America, and some of them being quite different,” Ulzen said. “But I think it’s just an opportunity to broaden one’s understanding of the complexity of the African continent and what it brings to our modern reality in America.”

Tickets for the event on Saturday, Feb. 29, are $5 for students with an ID and $10 for general admission. The minimum age requirement is 14. Food will be available for purchase, as well as African crafts and arts.

To purchase tickets, go to m.bpt.me/event/4513132 

Catch a Movie:

“Razana” from Madagascar (2018, dir. Haminiaina Ratovoarivony)

“The Mercy of the Jungle” from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2018, dir. Jöel Karekezi)

“enGULFed” from Ghana (2018, dir. Kojo Owiredu Kissi)

“Two Weeks in Lagos” from Nigeria (2018, dir. Kathryn Fasegha)