2021 Festival

The 2021 Cascade Festival of African Films will be held virtually from February 5 to March 10, 2021. The festival will remain free and open to the public, but films will be shown online. Check back here soon for more details and the list of films!

Festival Highlights

  • Opening Night will take place on Friday, January 31 st , 2020 this year, with two screenings of The Burial of Kojo with Ghanaian filmmaker Blitz Bazawule at the Hollywood Theatre.
  • Family Fest will open with a live performance by BRAVO Youth Orchestra, and will feature a series of family-friendly short films by African directors.
  • Thursday Documentary Films cover human rights and social justice issues from the countries of Mali, Libya, Gabon and South Africa.
  • Women Filmmakers Week will run from February 27 th through 29 th . The week will include films by women from Libya, Algeria, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
  • Closing Night will be held on February 29 th at the Hollywood Theatre, with the screening of Life is Fare, by Eritrean American Sephora Woldu. Half narrative, half musical, it is a grand ride through San Francisco, seen through the eyes of a homesick Eritrean taxi driver. Ms Woldu will be in attendance.
  • African Film Heritage Series This special Wednesday evening series is courtesy of the African Film Heritage Project, a branch of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, which is dedicated to locating and preserving 50 classic African films, some thought lost and others thought beyond repair. We will feature four films from this project. For more info on the project, see Cinema Escapist’s interview with Martin Scorsese.
  • Live Event We are pleased to present How to Have Fun in a Civil War, a 1-woman show by Somalian Ifrah Mansour. In this autobiographical multimedia piece, Ms. Mansour explores Somalia’s 1991 civil war through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, layering poetry, puppetry and film with live narrative. (Appropriate for ages 6 and up). For more info on and reservations please visit  www.boomarts.org