• Analysis
See My World film festival in Manchester draws on African philosophies
The See My World film festival, a Manchester film festival dedicated to independent creators from the African diaspora in northern England, reaches the Contact theatre on 21 November, drawing on African philosophies about how lessons from the past can shape the present and near future.
Pan-African roots and the 1945 Congress legacy
The one-day festival sits within See My World's year-round programme of pan-African arts, culture and events, and it builds on the legacy of the 1945 Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, which brought together figures of the postwar independence movements around a shared vision of liberation.
Tunde Adekoya, See My World's CEO and artistic director, said the festival takes inspiration from across the spectrum of pan-African thought, including the works of Kenyan writers John Mbiti and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
Mbiti, Ngũgĩ and time
The two thinkers took different paths: Mbiti, an Anglican theologian who died in 2019, sought common ground between African religions and Christianity, while Ngũgĩ, author of the 1986 book Decolonising the Mind who died last year, was a Marxist who saw colonialism as cultural and economic conquest with language as its sharpest instrument.
Ngũgĩ famously abandoned English to write in Gikuyu, a Bantu language mainly spoken in Kenya, and criticised the role of missionary Christianity in colonial rule.
Adekoya connected Mbiti's Sasa na Zamani concept of time, in which the past informs everything moving forward, to the way the festival returns to pan-African histories to inform progress.
What is on screen
Film-makers were invited to submit films lasting up to 30 minutes from across genres, with no screening fees charged.
Adekoya said: "It's a day dedicated to pan-African and global majority films from the north of England with exclusive premieres of documentaries we've been working on".
The documentaries include:
- •Homage, described as a "cinematic love letter to dance" that traces a culture through present-day portraits of dance artists and Manchester archival material
- •Poetic Justice, which explores how pan-African thought and Manchester's poetry scene speak across decades
Access and the day's programme
Adekoya described the festival as "a playground in search of strategies of liberation, using the festival as a way to explore different philosophies".
Accessibility is central to that thinking. Adekoya said that when we think about decolonisation, we think about how structures have been created to alienate and exclude communities, which is why the festival focuses on making film accessible.
Beyond the screenings, the day brings exhibitions, explorations of performances, discussions, Q&As, insights into directors' processes and workshops.
The See My World film festival runs from 2pm to 11pm on Saturday 21 November at Contact theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.
