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April 16, Thursday, 21:00, Rodina, Main Hall
Program R10: Tandem: Two Women – Two Stories from Zimbabwe
(in collaboration with the Clermont-Ferrand Festival)

“Mother’s Day” (30min, 2004, Zimbabwe)
dir. Tsitsi Dangarembga

“Mother’s Day” is like nothing you've ever seen. Drought has struck. Father pushes his wife away from the family dinner of termites. In anger, when mother challenges him, he digs a pit with a brutal purpose, but little does he suspect that Mother can retaliate just as powerfully . Based on an old Shona folk tale and rendered as a musical celebrating a diversity of contemporary Zimbabwean music, Mother's Day is the newest and most exciting motion picture development to come out of Zimbabwe. With the wonderful voice of Prudence Katomeni. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2005.

Born in 1959 Tsitsi Dangarembga first made her name as a theatre writer/director and a novelist. Her 1989 novel “NERVOUS CONDITIONS” was recently named as one of the Best Twelve African Books of the 20th Century. She finished studies at the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) in 1996 and has since returned to her native Zimbabwe to help setting up a film industry there. In Germany she worked on documentaries and reportages for "Deutsche Welle", "ORB" and "Arte". In Zimbabwe she wrote the story for the most successfull local film “NERIA”, directed “EVERYONE'S CHILD” as well as several full length documentaries.

“Nora” (35min, 2008, US/UK/Mozambique)
dir. Alla Kovgan and David Hinton
chor. Nora Chipaumire

Shot in Southern Africa, “Nora” is based on childhood memories of the self-exiled dancer Nora Chipaumire who was born in Zimbabwe in 1965. Using performance and dance, she brings her history to life in a swiftly-moving poem of sound and image. The original score was composed by a Zimbabwean legend - Thomas Mapfumo.

Alla Kovgan is a Boston-based filmmaker, born in Moscow (Russia). Her films and films that she co-directed have been presented worldwide including at the Sundance Film Festival, Lincoln Center, Montreal Film Festival, ZDF (Germany) and numerous others. The two latest documentaries that she co-directed "Traces of the Trade" and “Generation X Moscow” will appear on PBS P.O.V in 2008 and 2010. Since 1999, Alla has been involved with interdisciplinary collaborations – creating intermedia performances (with KINODANCE Company), dance films, and documentaries about dance such as “Movement (R)evolution Africa” together with Joan Frosch. Alla's projects have been supported by Open Society Institute, LEF Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Bank of America Celebrity Series, among others. Since 2000, she has taught and curated dance film/avant-garde cinema worldwide and she acts as a Curator of St. Petersburg Dance Film Festival KINODANCE (Russia) and as a co-Curator of Balagan Film Series (Boston).

David Hinton is a director who has made many documentaries for British television. His subjects have included artists of all kinds, including painter Francis Bacon, film-maker Bernardo Bertolucci, writer Alan Bennett, and choreographer Karole Armitage. He has also made films about Dostoyevsky, rock and roll, visual comedy, and the Cultural Revolution in China. He is best known in the dance world for DEAD DREAMS OF MONOCHROME MEN and STRANGE FISH, his film versions of stage shows by DV8 Physical Theatre. He has also made performance films with Adventures in Motion Pictures, the Alvin Ailey Company and the Royal Swedish Ballet, and he has collaborated with several choreographers to create original dance works for the screen. He has twice won British Academy awards for his documentaries, and his dance films have won many awards, including a Prix Italia, an Emmy, and the IMZ Dance Screen Award.

Nora Chipaumire was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe during the Chimurenga Chechipiri, or second war of liberation, and has lived in the U.S. as a self-exiled artist since 1989. Now based in Brooklyn, Chipaumire considers herself a political artist in dialogue with herself, fellow Africans, and humanity: Zimbabwe is her focus and Africa is her center. Winner of the 2007 BESSIE "for a towering, incandescent presence and for raising the bar to celestial heights in her full-tilt performances," she is the founder and artistic director of Company Nora Chipaumire.

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P01-P02 InstallationFR01FR02Closing: Awards and Encores

© Kinodance–Russia, 2009
akovgan@kinodance.com