Leeds International African Arts Festival, Cinema Africa! at Hyde Park Picture House

Leeds International African Arts Festival partners with Hyde Park Picture House this summer, with a pair of films scheduled as part of the cinema’s ongoing Cinema Africa! strand.

First up, a trip to the plains of South Africa as a half-striped zebra deals with the rejection of his herd in animated adventure comedy Khumba (14 & 15 June). Presented with support from its creators, Trigger Fish Animation Studio in Cape Town, Jake T. Austin voices the titular zebra, Khumba, as part of an all-star voice cast that includes Richard E. Grant as an ostrich, Liam Neeson as a half-blind leopard looking to put zebra on the menu, and Catherine Tatee as a neurotic Merino sheep. While Khumba’s herd blame him for lack of rain and spreading drought, the film explores themes of self-acceptance and the benefits of difference as he meets various animals along his journey to find water.

The second film on the schedule is Aiwan Obinyan’s 2018 documentary Wax Print. The director spent two years traversing continents in order to trace the global history of African wax prints and uncover an untold story of how bright and bold wax print fabric is wound up in the struggle and identity of Africa and its people. Wax Print looks at the craft and skill that goes into making the fabric, the generations of artisans who have produced it and passed on their techniques, whilst also shining a light on the fast fashion and mass produced fakes that profit off of that work.

Obinyan also looks at the social impact of wax prints, of how the patterns come with meaning — from the pattern named @The Ungrateful Husband,” which is worn by women to shame their disloyal husbands, to the ways in which members of the African diaspora use the fabric to maintain ties to their heritage.

While the two films — a children’s animation and a meaty documentary — might seem worlds apart, each deals in the iconography of Africa, prompting questions as to how that iconography is consumed on the continent itself, and exported around the world.