Africa Unleashed: Introducing the 8th Helsinki African Film Festival

At the heart of Finland’s beloved capital city, Helsinki, is the Helsinki African Film Festival (HAFF) taking place at the Kino Korjaamo and Kino Sheryl, which began on May 7th and will draw to a close on May 14th.

The annual festival was founded and formerly directed by renowned Kenyan author Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, after she noticed a void of quality African films in Finland.

Ngugi hopes to challenge the exhausted, one-dimensional narrative of Africa the Finns were used to seeing in mainstream media and promote the work of like-minded African creatives to a Finnish audience.

This year’s theme is “Africa Unleashed.” Through the selected thought-provoking contemporary African films, the audience gets an invitation to envision and explore the future of Africa.

The lineup for this year has 33 films representing 20 African countries.

Among the selection of movies includes “Dry,” which garnered the 2016 Programmers’ Award for Narrative Feature at the Pan-African film festival in Los Angeles:

Other notable mentions include “Dem Dem,” “Ori Inu,” and “The African Who Wanted To Fly.”

Watch “Ori Inu’s trailer here:

Find out more about the Helsinki African Film Festival here.