2010 Sundance Film Festival

An exciting new wave of filmmaking talent is emerging from sub-Saharan Africa. These young filmmakers are exploring both new directions and traditional storytelling genres—both African and from other cultures—to tell modern African stories with a fresh sense of style and meaning.

This special program presents three films that reflect this new wave of African cinema. South African filmmaker Jenna Bass draws from ancient mythological storytelling traditions to create a kind of historical magical realism in relating a modern-day tale of warfare in Zimbabwe in her film The Tunnel. Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu creates a brightly original science-fiction vision in her film Pumzi, a story of a botanist who risks everything to nurture a plant 35 years after the "Water War.” And Senegalese filmmaker Dyana Gaye draws from the fifties- and sixties-style French musicals to breathe fresh air into Saint Louis Blues, a buoyant road-trip tale set in the clogged urban streets and dusty roads of Senegal.