Kyle Shepherd (born 8 July 1987 inCape Town) is a South African jazz film and theater composer and pianist. He was theStandard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA (University of South Africa) piano competition winner in the Jazz category in 2015.
His television credits include the Netflix South African hit drama series,Unseen,Blood and Water, andSavage Beauty.
His film credits include the South African filmsNoem My Skollie(Call Me Thief), South Africa's official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards;Fiela se Kind (2019) winner of Best Score at the 2020Silwerskerm Film Festival—one of world's only Afrikaans film festivals;Barakat (2020), South Africa's official entry to the2022 Academy Awards and giving Shepherd his second Silwerskerm award for Best Score (2022);Vlugtig (2021) andIndemnity (2021). His most recent film score was for the comedy caperThe Umbrella Men (2022), awarded Best Film at London's Film Africa Fest.
Shepherd is also the co-creator of the hit Afrikaans musical television show,Koortjies withCape Town jazz and gospel music star Jonathan Rubain.
Of his process of composing for film:
I try to learn the heart of the story. Sometimes, I don't need the full details. I don't always read the script. And then I just write music without any information. I write in open form. Usually, I come up with five or 10 pieces. And somewhere in between that, we find the main theme. Once you have your theme, you can really blast out from there. It's also nice to write music that's not restricted by the scene or edit.
In 2021, 2022, and 2023 AFDA was ranked among the top 5 most innovative South African educational institutions in the creative brand space in The Loeries Official Rankings.
The18thSouth African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) took place October 25th and 26th.Shaka iLembe, the 2023 TV series retelling of theShaka, the iconicZulu King, picked up 12 awards, including for Best TV drama, the most of any nominee. Netflix'sYoh!, Christmas, a romantic comedy, andOutlaws, South Africa's first contemporary western series, both won eight Golden Horns each.
Algeria celebratesRevolution Day on 1st of November, marking the start of the Algerian Revolution and the armed fight for independence from France in 1954. WatchOutside the Law a 2010 film directed byRachid Bouchareb. The story takes place between 1945 and 1962, and focuses on the lives of three Algerian brothers in France, set against the backdrop of theAlgerian independence movement and the Algerian War. The film represented Algeria at the83rd Academy Awards, where it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
Featured Film
Boniface Mwangi in 2017
Softie is a 2020 Kenyan documentary about political activist and photojournalistBoniface Mwangi who first came to prominence through his photographs documenting thepost-election violence of the 2007 elections. Most recently Mwangi made international headlines after being arrested and detained overnight on October 27, 2024, by Kenyan police, after calling for ananti-government protest in Nairobi.Softie, which chronicles 5 years of his life leading up to his run for a local seat in the2017 elections, is a portrait of Mwangi the activist, but also about Kenyan politics, family, and identity.
The first feature film of director Sam Soko,Softie won several awards including a Special Jury Prize for Editing at the2020 Sundance Film Festival, and Best Documentary at theDurban International Film Festival (DIFF) 2020, an award that automatically qualified the film for consideration for the Oscar documentary shortlist for the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony.
Soko said ofSoftie:
"This film has to be for Kenyans, for that person that actually wakes up at 5am and goes to vote. That person has to see themselves."
Maïmouna Doucouré spent nearly 18 months researching studies on how children are exposed to adult content and sexualised images on social media forCuties, her award-winning 2020 feature directorial debut. The story centers on a Senegalese-French girl with a traditionalMuslim upbringing who is caught between her family’s traditional values and contemporary western culture when she joins atwerking dance group.
Barakat (2020), aSouth African family drama film directed byAmy Jephta is the first Afrikaans-language Muslim feature film produced in South Africa. The story centers around the family drama that ensues when an aging, widowed matriarch, brings together her fractured, dysfunctional family overEid-al-Fitr in order to introduce her new romantic partner. The film received multiple nominations and awards and was South Africa's entry forBest International Feature Film at the94th Academy Awards.
Birthdays
Syndy Emade in 2017
Isaac Nabwana (born. Nov 6, 1973), popularly known as Nabwana I.G.G., is aUgandan film director, cinematographer, writer andproducer.He is the founder of the film studioWakaliwood, known for producing popular ultra-low budget action comedy films. He has been referred to as Uganda'sQuentin Tarantino due to his use of over-the-top violence. Nabwana first started to gain wide international attention after uploading a trailer ofWho Killed Captain Alex? on YouTube in 2010 followed by the entire film in 2015. The film has gained acult status and has over 9.8 million views on YouTube.
Thandiwe Newton (born 6 November 1972) is an award-winning British actress of Zimbabwean descent. Mostly known for her Hollywood roles in films and TV series such asCrash,Star Wars,ER andWestworld, Newton’s African filmography includesHalf of a Yellow Sun, a 2013 Anglo-Nigeriandrama film directed byBiyi Bandele and based on thenovel of the same name byChimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She also was an executive producer of the animated-live action documentary filmLiyana, which tells the story of five orphaned children inSwaziland who create an original tale about a girl named Liyana.
Syndy Emade (born 21 November 1993) is aCameroonian actress and producer. She made her acting debut in 2010 in the filmObsession byAchille Brice and in 2015 founded BLUE RAIN Entertainment, a production company whose film credits include the 2017 romantic comedyA Man For The Weekend featuring Nollywood starAlexx Ekubo, and one of the first Cameroonian films to stream on Netflix. Most recently she starred in the 2024 filmWhen Wolves Cry, a pan-African advocacy drama on the perils of “fake news” that filmmed in Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo and Benin starringFrancis Duru,Steve Eboh, Sydney Diala, Happy Julian, and Alex Nwankwa.
Quote
Danai Gurira in 2022
“Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for changing perception of Africa and allowing a complex, rich self exploration of its history and unique culture. Its boundless possibilities to give Africa its own voice is what brought me to writing and acting."
Danai Gurira, Actress, Playwright, Activist, and Artistic Director of Almasi Collaborative Arts
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Featured Film Score
Saïd Hamich Benlarbi and Ayoub Gretaa at Across the Sea premiere Cannes 2024
Told as atriptych with each chapter named after one of the three main characters, the film centers on a love triangle that develops between Nour (Ayoub Gretaa), a young man from Morocco who came toMarseille as an illegal immigrant in the 1990s; Serge(Grégoire Colin), a closeted bisexual police officer; and Noémie (Anna Mouglalis), Serge's wife.
Raï, a popular genre of Algerian music, plays throughout the film and is integral to the story according to Hamich:
Raï music was one of the main driving forces behind this project. Since it experienced its golden age in Marseille in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was important for me to root this music (and the city of Marseille) in the present and in the daily lives of my characters. Raï went into exile in France, and even "reinvented" itself through exile. Many of the songs deal with these themes in a very direct way... when one is in exile, there’s often a very strong, archaic, and powerful relationship with the music of one’s origins. When I was writing the film, raï was both an ally and a compass, helping me find the right balance between the social and the melodramatic.
Love Unto Grave is one of the best known novels inEthiopia and is considered a classic of Ethiopian literature. The novel gained popularity largely due to its narration on Ethiopian radio during theDerg regime. The story revolves around the doomed love affair between Bezabeh, a nobleman, and Seble, a young woman of a lower social class. The novel also takes aim at the injunctions of the Church, class prejudices and the hardships and inequities faced by the peasantry.
The first of four commissioned seasons, each consisting of 12 episodes, began airing on September 11, 2024, to coincide with theEthiopian New Year celebrations.
In preparation of filming the director said:
"We are trying to understand the book before executing it; there are more than 70 studies done onFikir Eske Mekabir, and we are trying to read and understand each perspective. We want to know how people perceive it, and in the end, we want to go out with our own voice. It needs dedication and confidence."
Kyle Shepherd (born 8 July 1987 inCape Town) is a South African jazz film and theater composer and pianist. He was theStandard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA (University of South Africa) piano competition winner in the Jazz category in 2015.
TheAfrica International Film Festival (AFRIFF) returns for its 13th edition 3-8 November 2024 in Lagos, Nigeria.Headless, a thriller by Michael Ndiomu, starringGideon Okeke,Uzoamaka Anuinoh andBaaj Adebule that unfolds at the nexus of politics, crime and Nollywood, will open the festival whileObi Emelonye’s latest film,Out of Breath, will close out the festival. The Igbo-language epic film received nine 2024Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) nominations.
The seventh edition of theEl Gouna Film Festival takes place October 24 to November 1 in theRed Sea Egyptian resort town. More than 80 features and shorts from over 30 countries will screen. Among the feature films in competition includeMeryam Joobeur’sWho Do I Belong To, a Tunisian drama;Nabil Ayouch’s musical drama,Everybody Loves Touda, which premiered at Cannes; and Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’sThe Brink Of Dreams, which won the Golden Eye Award for best documentary atCannes’ Critics’ Week.
Algeria celebratesRevolution Day on 1st of November, marking the start of the Algerian Revolution and the armed fight for independence from France in 1954. WatchOutside the Law a 2010 film directed byRachid Bouchareb. The story takes place between 1945 and 1962, and focuses on the lives of three Algerian brothers in France, set against the backdrop of theAlgerian independence movement and the Algerian War. The film represented Algeria at the83rd Academy Awards, where it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film._(cropped).jpg)
Softie is a 2020 Kenyan documentary about political activist and photojournalistBoniface Mwangi who first came to prominence through his photographs documenting thepost-election violence of the 2007 elections. Most recently Mwangi made international headlines after being arrested and detained overnight on October 27, 2024, by Kenyan police, after calling for ananti-government protest in Nairobi.Softie, which chronicles 5 years of his life leading up to his run for a local seat in the2017 elections, is a portrait of Mwangi the activist, but also about Kenyan politics, family, and identity.
Maïmouna Doucouré spent nearly 18 months researching studies on how children are exposed to adult content and sexualised images on social media forCuties, her award-winning 2020 feature directorial debut. The story centers on a Senegalese-French girl with a traditionalMuslim upbringing who is caught between her family’s traditional values and contemporary western culture when she joins atwerking dance group.
The short comedy drama,Made In Mauritius (2009), was the first ever Mauritian film to be selected as part of Official Selection at theClermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Directed by Mauritian directorDavid Constantin, the7-minute film can be watched for free onViddsee.
Isaac Nabwana (born. Nov 6, 1973), popularly known as Nabwana I.G.G., is aUgandan film director, cinematographer, writer andproducer.He is the founder of the film studioWakaliwood, known for producing popular ultra-low budget action comedy films. He has been referred to as Uganda'sQuentin Tarantino due to his use of over-the-top violence. Nabwana first started to gain wide international attention after uploading a trailer ofWho Killed Captain Alex? on YouTube in 2010 followed by the entire film in 2015. The film has gained acult status and has over 9.8 million views on YouTube.
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Thandiwe Newton (born 6 November 1972) is an award-winning British actress of Zimbabwean descent. Mostly known for her Hollywood roles in films and TV series such asCrash,Star Wars,ER andWestworld, Newton’s African filmography includesHalf of a Yellow Sun, a 2013 Anglo-Nigeriandrama film directed byBiyi Bandele and based on thenovel of the same name byChimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She also was an executive producer of the animated-live action documentary filmLiyana, which tells the story of five orphaned children inSwaziland who create an original tale about a girl named Liyana.
Oulaya Amamra (born 12 November 1996) is a French-Moroccan actress who first came to prominence in the 2016 filmsDivines andTamara. She won theCésar Award for Most Promising Actress and theLumières Award for Best Female Revelation forDivines, a coming of age story directed by her older sisterHouda Benyamina and which won Beynamina theCaméra d'O at Cannes. Among her most recent roles is in her sister's sophomore film,Toutes pour une (All for One) (2025) in which Amamra teams up again with herDivines co-starDéborah Lukumuena, to play one of threemusketeers disguised as men in 1625 France.
Syndy Emade (born 21 November 1993) is aCameroonian actress and producer. She made her acting debut in 2010 in the filmObsession byAchille Brice and in 2015 founded BLUE RAIN Entertainment, a production company whose film credits include the 2017 romantic comedyA Man For The Weekend featuring Nollywood starAlexx Ekubo, and one of the first Cameroonian films to stream on Netflix. Most recently she starred in the 2024 filmWhen Wolves Cry, a pan-African advocacy drama on the perils of “fake news” that filmmed in Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo and Benin starringFrancis Duru,Steve Eboh, Sydney Diala, Happy Julian, and Alex Nwankwa.
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Love Unto Grave (Amharic: ፍቅር እስከ መቃብር;Fikir Eske Mekabir) (2024) is an Ethiopian television drama series directed and co-written by Sewmehon Yismaw based on the 1968 novelof the same name byHaddis Alemayehu.
