Africa International Film Festival has announced the names of members for the juries that will award prizes at the forthcoming Africa International Film Festival, which will run from November 30 to December 4. The juries comprise of 6 individuals who are well-grounded in the global arts community.

The Feature/Animation Jury

Eriq Ebouaney was born in France, but originally from Cameroon. As a child, he had no dreams of becoming an actor. It was when he was 30 that he quit his job as a sales manager to join a theatre company and become a professional actor. Having appeared in many productions, as “BlackTie” in Femme Fatale (Brian de Palma) and also as Patrice Lumumba (the former Congolese Prime Minister) in Raoul Peck’s Lumumba, he has completely captured the imagination of the world. He has worked with Gerard Depardieu, Jean Reno, Antonio Banderas, Orlando Bloom, Brian de Palma, Ridley Scott, Park Chan Wook, Jean-Jacques Annaud and other international stars.

British playwright, Oladipo Agboluaje was born in 1968 in Hackney and educated in Britain and Nigeria. He studied Theatre Arts at the University of Benin and later wrote a doctoral thesis at the Open University on West and South African drama. His works include, Early Morning (produced by Futuretense), God is a DJ, The Estate, The Christ of Coldharbour Lane, For One Night Only, The Hounding of David Oluwale, Iya Ile, The Garbage King (an adaptation of Elizabeth Laird’s novel) and Say Goodbye.

Heidi Lobato was born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In the 1980s, she was the manager of various music groups and co-organizer of a six-day music festival, Art Support, in collaboration with KIT, Melkweg and Paradiso. She began her film and television career in 1984 with Migrantentelevisie Amsterdam as a maker of programs and presenter for Surinamese and Antillean broadcasters.

Documentary Jury

Femi Odugbemi is an award-winning writer, producer/director and photographer who is widely respected for his creativity and professionalism. He has worked in the Nigerian motion picture industry and has created and produced several critically-acclaimed entertainment programmes for television and radio.Trained in Film & TV Production at Montana State University, Bozeman, United States, he worked for a couple of years as a producer at KUSM Channel 9 TV station in Bozeman, Montana.

Mahen Bonetti: Mahen Bonetti is the founder and Executive Director of African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF), a non-profit arts organization founded in 1990. AFF showcases works of African filmmakers and develops ways to share the vision and culture of African film with American and international audiences. In her role as film liaison, she contributes to an interdisciplinary mix of panels and programs, including those established by the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ougadougou (FESPACO), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York State Council of the Arts, UNDP, Africa’s US diplomatic offices and the Rolex Arts Initiative Awards.

Mbye Cham Mbye Cham, Ph.D. is originally from The Gambia and is currently Chairman of the Department of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, D. C. His areas of research interest are literature and film and culture and development. In addition to numerous essays and chapters in books on African and Caribbean literature and film, he is the editor of EX-ILES: Essays on Caribbean Cinema, and co-editor of Blackframes: Critical Perspectives on Black Independent Cinema and African Experiences of Cinema. Dr. Cham has served on many film juries throughout the world, most recently, as President of the Official Jury for Long Feature Films at FESPACO 2011 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) is a platform for the world to zoom in on the talent and beauty of Africa through film. Started December 2010, it will hold yearly hosting both local and international filmmakers, celebrities, actors, directors, film buyers, distributors, visual artists, film students, amateurs, film lovers and the press.