Wallay! Barcelona African Film Festival

Last year, Barcelona - the film-loving cinematic city par excellence - experienced the birth of the Wallay! Barcelona African Film Festival which was created with the aim of inundating cinemas with the best audiovisual works from Africa and the African diaspora.

Promoted by correspondent Gemma Parellada (Barcelona / Abidjan), film producer and critic Beatriz Leal, and journalist and cultural adviser Salym Fayad (Bogotá / Johannesburg) in alliance with African festivals and various collectives, Wallay! takes us on a journey through the diversity and creativity of the African continent narrated by means of its cinematographic language.

Casa África collaborated in the launch of the festival last year and is maintaining that involvement by facilitating the presence of Ema Edosio, a Nigerian film director who self-trained as a filmmaker in Nollywood. After years working freelance and thanks to her personal style with the camera, Ema was admitted to the New York Academy and the Motion Pictures institute in Michigan, where she studied direction and photography. In 2013 she returned to Nigeria, where she worked for the BBC and the Nigerian channels EbonyLife TV and Ndani TV. In 2014 she received the Film and Television Director of the Year Award from EbonyLife TV. Her first feature film Kasala! is a comedy which was filmed in Lagos and is having its Spanish premiere at Wallay!

Kasala brings us the story of a young man from a Lagos suburb who takes his uncle’s car to go to a party with his friends. Things get difficult when they have an accident and they only have five hours to raise money and fix the damage before the uncle returns. A fast-paced comedy that, according to the director herself, is a reflection of her life in Nigeria.

Kasala will be screened on 12 April 2019, at 7:30pm at the Filmoteca de Catalunya-Plaça Salvador Seguí 1-9, El Raval

Before that, at 6pm on 11 April 2019, Ema will offer a masterclass open to the public at the Facultat de Comunicació de Blanquerna-Plaça de Joan Coromines, El Raval

All the information is available on the festival website.