MISS BLACK GERMANY
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As they prepare for the MISS BLACK GERMANY vote, four women talk about their personal experiences with the predominantly white beauty ideals they grew up with.
MISS BLACK GERMANY Direction: Elisha Smith-Leverock, digital, OF m. engl. UT, 13 min
Guests
Nancy studied direction at the ifs film school in Cologne and has since been working as a director, author and vision mixer. Her Black Lives Matter documentary I HAVE A DREAM traveled from festival to festival worldwide in 2021. Her debut film HOMESHOPPERS' PARADISE followed in 2023 and was shown on Arte and in cinemas.
Abel Michael is a filmmaker and owner of the agency ‘AMXI Filmdesign’, which has its headquarters in Cologne. As a cameraman and director, he designs, conceptualises and visualises advertising and promotional films for businesses. His film journey began at the age of 11, when he received his first small digital camera as a birthday gift. He and his friends would use it to make football trick videos in the style of Nike’s ‘Joga Bonito’ series, which they then uploaded to YouTube. At 18, he turned his hobby into a profession and started shooting advertising commissions and wedding videos. His short documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement was shown in Cologne at the 2020 Africa Film Events. For the festival this year, he has worked together with filmmaker Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye to curate the diaspora short film series.
Christoph Mushayija Rath was born in 1985 in Gatagara (Rwanda). Upon completing his A-levels and mandatory community service in Germany, he spent a year and a half in Guinea, where he worked as a freelance photographer and filmmaker. Back in Germany, he worked for the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Then another one and a half years in West Africa – this time in Senegal, where he again worked as a filmmaker and photographer. He made numerous short films and documentaries with CinéBanlieue, a young filmmakers’ group in Dakar that FilmInitiativ featured at the 2017 edition of AFFK. Since 2011 he has been studying film direction at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB).
Christoph Mushayija Rath’s short film IN DEUTSCHLAND will open the Diaspora Shorts night on the second Saturday of the festival. His other films include VANITY PIG TRAIL (2019), ASCHE (2015), IM WALD (2013), ATTAYA (2009) and SAKKADEN (2005).