The 3rd Annual Matatu Film Festival
#MATATU15 | The Spectacular Walks of Ordinary People
September 23-26 2015
#MATATU15 reframes as a Festival of Stories this year, with the spectacular walk of ordinary people driving the curation. At its core, music, film, and art contributors from the Bay Area to New Orleans to East and South Africa were invited to shape and curate their respective and interactive spaces.
Not at all conventional, #MATATU15 activates several contemporary spaces in Oakland including Duende, Miss Ollie’s, Owl N Wood, Starline Social Club, and The Flight Deck as its festival sites.
The film festival takes its name from matatus (Swahili), privately owned minibuses or easily accessible share taxis in East Africa. Decorated with popular icons and sounds, they offer a means of travel and often, access to another world and time. Traveling from that idea, #MATATU15 navigates through four days of music, film, and performance inclusive of artists and films from all over the world.
OPENING NIGHT: AN EVENING WITH SAUL WILLIAMS
The festival launches Wednesday, September 23 with a two-part evening featuring musician, poet and writer Saul Williams, and curators of the #MATATU15 music program, Black Spirituals. The music performance is prefaced with only the second U.S. screening of NECKTIE YOUTH, which premiered at TriBeCa Film Festival earlier in the year.
A pre-festival dinner is hosted by Saul Williams and James Beard Leadership Award recipient Bryant Terry at Miss Ollie’s (901 Washington St., Oakland, CA 94607) on Tuesday, September 22. The Opening Night film screening and performance Wednesday, September 23 at Starline Social Club (645 W. Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612).
CLOSING NIGHT: BLACK PRESIDENT
The festival will present the North American premiere of BLACK PRESIDENT after its World Premiere at the 2015 Berlinale. The film, which follows the plight of young Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai, concentrates on the notion of ‘black guilt.’ The film questions the responsibility of African artists in an ever more globalised universe, where they maybe find themselves ‘playing catch up’ to the West as opposed to following our own paths.
For tickets and more information, visit www.matatufestival.org.