We are excited to announce that the Black Cinema Project team, Samra Mayanja and Mosa Mpetha, are the 2024 curators for South by South.
South by South is a quarterly film screening at the South London Gallery. The programme, which is now in its thirteenth year, focuses on presenting bold and innovative cinema from Africa and the diaspora to audiences in the UK.
Samra Mayanja says: “In October 2023 I found myself in a Downtown Cairo cinema, weeping to the credits of ‘Goodbye Julia’. Two young Sudanese women placed their hands on my hand. They comforted me in Arabic. We walked together. I smoked on the step. Then we drank coffee at a cafe until late.
Hours passed and we had translated ourselves through an app and entangled our lives with those in the film. Within the messiness of delayed communication I was reminded of Black Cinema Project’s origins in my bedroom cinema with Mosa and Dhahab. We began practising a sociality centred around a kind of reflexive seeing; between the film, each other and ourselves. The project was born out of the belief that certain films demand discussion in order to complete them.
Our programme is focussed on the conditions that exacerbate criminalisation and constrain the body of the maker, the child and / or the audience. Which also means that conversely we’re interested in the impulse to run, hide or be free. As always we’re concerned with the story of the film itself; its making, distribution, preservation and exhibition.
We present the works of mandla rae, Mohamed Kordofani, Gadalla Gubara and Sara Gadalla Gubara. As always, each film will be followed by an open conversation.”
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ABOUT BLACK CINEMA PROJECT
Black Cinema Project (BCP) is an evolving space bringing people together with care, to discuss Black films and the landscape they are situated within. BCP interrogates and disrupts the current flow of watching, film exhibition and distribution.
The project is curated by artist-writer Samra Mayanja and film curator Mosa Mpetha. Our interests span obscure visual cultures from the depths of the internet and early cinema. Where we meet is an interest in and a care for the audience.
This is a porous project. We work in such a way that is fluid and attempts to honour the fluctuations in energy and commitment.