Tuesday 24 September 2013

Lights Camera Africa 2013 Film Festival


The Life House, Lagos proudly presents the 3rd Lights, Camera, Africa!!! Film Festival together with the African Film Festival, New York and Nadia Denton©, London.



This year the Lights, Camera, Africa!!! Film Festival is scheduled to hold again over the Independence Day holidays from Saturday, 28 September to Tuesday, 1 October 2013 with the theme, ‘Great Migrations’.



In the ever- shrinking ‘global village’ migration remains as strong a current as it always was. However, the age of technology has made it faster, more urgent and presented itself to us in more forms than one. We transfer thoughts, ideas, information, data, emotions and people more swiftly than ever before. The outcome is a changing worldscape. Ideas that were once innovative and implausible are now accepted and established. These great migrations, mirror our constant journey through life and all its facets and can be recounted loudly with time and physical distance, or subtly with personal growth and cultural evolution.



Lights, Camera, Africa!!! 2013 will feature a diverse range of African cinema and this year will include novel genres. Inspired by the theme ‘Great Migrations’ our 2013 film festival will explore the various aspects of migration and movement of African people, culture, art and existentiality. 



The Lights, Camera, Africa!!! 2013 Film Festival will highlight and explore the migrations and movement of people to and from Africa; the social dynamics that Africa has witnessed in post colonial years; the dynamic evolution of the continent’s art expressions particularly in film, music and literature and the general shifts in thought, philosophy, politics and our communal and individual identity as Africans.



Continuing to celebrate and propagate a rich African heritage through film, The Life House through its Lights, Camera, Africa!!! Film Festival this September promises to deliver to its enthused audience and sponsors a robust programme of educational talks and workshops; entertaining concerts and fairs and an even more diverse pool of riveting films in multiple genres including but not limited to feature, animation, experimental and documentary.



Our pioneer partnership with the acclaimed 20-year old African Film Festival, New York (AFF) continues to blossom and with a 5-day programme planned this year (our longest festival yet), The Life House is especially thrilled to present Lights, Camera, Africa!!! Film Festival to the people of Nigeria, Africa and indeed the entire world in 2013. This year, The Life House proudly announces new partnerships and exchange opportunities with the New Black London Film Heritage group and Nadia Denton© of the United Kingdom.



Lights, Camera, Africa!!! continues to showcase the brightest ideas in African cinema; promote the most promising film talent from within Africa and in particular the work of local filmmakers in Nigeria. 

Saturday 21 September 2013

Puma Films 4 Peace 2013 Online Stream


Puma Films4Peace kicks of this weekend around Lagos but for those who wont be able to make it to any of our three locations we are streaming the 2013 programme on our website www.vanlagos.org


Wednesday 18 September 2013

Puma Films 4 Peace 2013 Lagos Screening

Join us at the Lagos screenings:


19th-20th September: MDSA 214c Eti Osa Way, Dolphin Estate, Ikoyi (www.mdsanigeria.cominfo@mdsanigeria.com, 0809 999 6372)

21st September: A White Space, 58 Raymond Njoku Street, off Awolowo Road, SW Ikoyi

23rd-27th September: Goethe Institute, Lagos City Hall, Catholic Mission Street, opposite Holy Cross Cathedral, Lagos Island
(info@lagos.goethe.org, 01 774 6888)  

Friday 6 September 2013

Puma Films 4 Peace



Films4Peace celebrates World Peace Day, 21st September 2013, with a unique global film project 

For World Peace Day on 21st September, films4peace, an annual, unique short film commission by PUMA, again explores the subject of peace via the medium of film.  Now in its third year, the project is curated by Mark Coetzee, ex-Director of the Rubell Family Collection, supported by PUMA and produced by Shooting People. It features some of today’s most innovative contemporary artists all of whom are asked to visually interpret the subject of peace. 

These short films are released annually, on World Peace Day, both physically at cultural and educational venues globally, and online via websites, blogs and media channels.  The films are live screened at hundreds of cultural venues, from Human Rights Festivals to major museums public spaces, youth leadership conferences and new media centres, from Dakar, Senegal to Miami, USA to Kashmir, India - in 2012, screenings spanned across 23 countries.

Justin DeKoszmovszky, PUMAVision Program Manager, said: “We are proud to produce films4peace with Shooting People for the third year running. This year we commissioned seven fantastic artists to again explore and interpret the subject of peace Peace to catalyze discussion and action, starting -- but not ending -- on World Peace Day. At PUMA we believe that film can be a powerful medium for change that can enlighten, educate and engage individuals such as consumers, activists, investors, voters, employees and leaders on issues critical to all of us.”

This year, 7 acclaimed artists have been commissioned to create short films around the subject of peace: Rob Carter, Wilmer Wilson IV, Athi-Patra Ruga, Zanele Moholi, Anthony Goicolea, and Assume Vivid Astro Focus.

Zanele Moholi is a multi-award winning, highly provocative and exceedingly in demand South African photographer. Moholi’s work is mostly about increasing the visibility of gay and transgender culture in the black community and she has drawn considerable attention to the practice of “queericide” – people who are killed via gender related hate crimes.

Fellow South African AthiPatra Ruga is fast becoming an exciting rising star in performance art.  Ruga himself dresses up in a spectacular array of costumes, inserting himself, or rather the characters he is playing, into challenging situations. He pulls together film, fashion and photography to make thought provoking, striking pieces relating to cultural identity as a hybrid construct.
23 year old Wilmer Wilson (Washington, USA) is a recent photography graduate whose card was marked when the prestigious Conner Contemporary gallery singled him out as one to watch and invited him to debut his challenging first collection.  In creating ‘Domestic Exchange’ Wilson found his 3D voice to make live sculptures using every day objects with low cultural value to make poignant points around freedom, choice, race.
Over the past decade, New York based Cuban American Anthony Goicolea has gained a reputation as the consummate storyteller.  Having created a significant body of work which has gained great acclaim and found its way into numerous galleries both locally and internationally, Goicolea’s multimedia works are enigmatic, mysterious, ambiguous, humorous, unsettling, and provocative.

Brooklyn-based Englishman Rob Carter has a knack for exposing landmarks and iconic structures from above while using his often comedic but always thoughtful knife (literally and figuratively) to create collages of the original material.  Whether its placing the unofficial Church of England (the home of footballers Manchester United) in Canterbury Cathedral, the home of the actual Church of England or placing imagery literally among plants and documenting its growth, his work is thought provoking and engaging.

First initiated by Brazilian-born artist Eli Sudbrack in 1994 as a professional tag, assume vivid astro focus is now a continuously evolving international group of artists known for creating multi-sensational mash-ups of graffiti, disco worship, gay porn and carnival in the form of large-scale installations and performance art.  They are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawing Collection.

Films4peace celebrates World Peace Day - an international United Nations day of ceasefire, and a day for individuals, organizations and countries to demonstrate acts of peace.  Each artist will visually interpret the subject of Peace to create a short film, which, in keeping with the spirit of the commission, will be gifted to the world, within public domain and free from screening fees, as tools for peace.  By releasing these short films as broadly as possible, on multiple live and virtual platforms, the aim is to effect positive social change and broaden the discussions around peace globally.

The films include 35 mm live action, experimental animation and fine art approaches. The artists are selected for the quality and scope of their work and their sensitivity in interpreting the theme.
PUMA
PUMA is one of the world’s leading Sportlifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. It is committed to working in ways that contribute to the world by supporting Creativity, SAFE Sustainability and Peace, and by staying true to the principles of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in decisions made and actions taken. PUMA starts in Sport and ends in Fashion. Its Sport Performance and Lifestyle labels include categories such as Football, Running, Motorsports, Golf and Sailing. Sport Fashion features collaborations with renowned designer labels such as Alexander McQueen and Mihara Yasuhiro. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and Tretorn. The company, which was founded in 1948, distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs about 11,000 people worldwide and has headquarters in Herzogenaurach/Germany, Boston, London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit http://www.puma.com

Wahala Dey