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By Tom Porter for MPBN
April 17, 2009
 
A new cultural event makes its debut tonight -- the Maine African Film Festival. The week-long festival features dozens of screenings at a variety of venues in southern Maine, including the Cumberland County Jail. The festival was prompted by a desire to explore and celebrate the growing, and on the surface unlikely, links between Maine and Africa.

"Seeds of Change: A Fresh Start" looks at the challenges faced by Maine's immigrant African farmers:  "We are Somalia, we don't know the culture of the country," says one Somalian in the film. 

Produced by Scarborough-based filmmaker Sharyn Paul Brusie, Seeds of Change examines the difficulties faced by many mostly-Somalian and Sudanese farmers as they struggle to make a living in their adopted homeland. One of them, Hawa Ibrahim, spent an entire day at the Lewiston Farmers market and made about $20 dollars. 

"I love farming, I really do, because in Africa farming is just part of life," says one person featured in the film. "It's not a business, it's part of life. So I'm not making money but I love farming," he says.

Seeds of Change premieres on Wednesday in Portland.  It's one of 27 screenings taking place in and around Maine's biggest city over the next week. The festival organizer is Kazeem Lawal, who describes himself as a Nigerian American.  "It's a way to continue to celebrate the colors of Maine. Maine is fast evolving in terms of what we know as Maine maybe 40 years ago, as compared to what Maine looks like today, and I think with all that extra color, I think it makes Maine even more special."

"In Maine it's been the African community that's been growing rapidly," says Noel Bonam, director for the Office of Multicultural Affairs for the State of Maine. While there are no firm numbers available, he estimates Maine's African population to be between 8 and 10 thousand.
"The population has more than doubled in the past five years and I think that is significant, and I think having a film festival not only offers the opportiunity for the community to celebrate their own identity but also to educate the larger community about their neighbors from Africa."

"We have documentaries, we have fiction, we have shorts, we have films that cover a wide of topics, from child soldiers, we have a film about oil from the Niger delta of Nigeria," says Lawal. "And we have just fun films, like musical kinds of films about this German guy that travelled west Africa for three years collecting old vinyl records of African funk and disco from the 70s."
 
Tom Porter: "Is there much of a pan-African film industry, or is it quite fragmented? Does it have an identity?"
Kazeem Lawal:  "It's out there."
TP:  "Because we know about Bollywood, and other parts of the world with thriving film industries."
KL:  "The third biggest film industry in the world right now is Nigerian films, called Nollywood, which is kind of interesting.  You have your Hollywood, Bollywood and then you have your Nollywood.  And I'm hoping gradually, as we build momentum with this festival, we'll be able to give Nollywood its platform here to showcase what's the big deal about Nollywood, and have films and hopefully some directors, and actors here, and music to show where that's coming from."

Funded with help local businesses, the Maine Community Foundation and the Maine Humanities Council, the festival is not just showing movies; some screenings will pave the way for panel discussions on a variety of topics.

Venues range from the Children's Museum of Portland to the Cumberland County Jail, where inmates will get the chance to watch and then discuss three movies about crime and redemption. On Wednesday night, meanwhile, there'll be a public discussion on what it means to be African in Maine.

For more information on the Maine African Film Festival, go to TMAFF.ORG