The Pan African Film Festival (PAFF)–A Compelling Hidden Gem of the Circuit

The Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) is closing in on its final days at the Cinemark BHC in Baldwin Hills Crenshaw. You’d think that the prime Los Angeles location would give PAFF a higher profile, but alas, PAFF remains a hidden gem of the film festival circuit- one of the few opportunities we have in the United States to watch African films. But PAFF also boasts a strong slate of domestic topics with remarkable balance. I never would have expected films here to try and give a sympathetic take to Lauren Boebert and a negative one to Ilhan Omar, yet here we are.

I can’t exactly recommend either of those particular films though, to be honest. One Person, One Vote is a documentary that deals with the goofy system that is the electoral college, and profiles Lauren Boebert for a spell because this was actually how she came to prominence, was opposing Colorado’s decision to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. As the documentary’s title implies, the overall tilt is to abolish the system- but Boebert largely defends her position in her own words absent editorialization.

I didn’t dislike the film for being insufficiently mean to Boebert so much as because most of its information is at best basic, and at worst misleading. The 3/5ths compromise, while indeed evil, is a bit tangential to the subject of the Electoral College. And you would never guess from the documentary on its own that the main drive behind the Electoral College’s existence was precisely because the Founders didn’t want common citizens voting for presidential candidates at all.

Force of Blue features the brief Ilhan Omar appearance. They’ve marketed documentary as an inspirational sports story about the success of Minneapolis North High School football team in the era of George Floyd and COVID restrictions. In somewhat smaller print, though, almost all of the coaching staff turn out to be cops. Which I suppose is better than the alternative. Although my distaste for this movie wasn’t about politics so much as the presentation, with a voiceover and musical tracks that often made Force of Blue feel like it wasn’t just about high schoolers, but made by them for an academic project.

 Now, for a political documentary with good production values I can actually recommend, there’s Anecdotals. You don’t even have to go to Los Angeles for this one- Ancedotals is free to watch on YouTube, although the algorithm might try to stop you. From longtime filmmaker Jennifer Sharp, Anecdotals discusses people who suffered vaccine injuries, desperately trying to present as neutral a discussion as possible yet often seeming to understand that it just isn’t possible to make a documentary on this subject without people accusing you of being antivaxx. The key irony of this being, of course, that in order to get a vaccine injury you must first be willing to take a vaccine. Which an actual antivaxx person would never do.

The point Anecdotals makes throughout is that people who have suffered these injuries can’t tell their stories. People censored them whenever they tried. They’re also on the hook for their own medical expenses since the official position by the government and pharmaceutical companies is that COVID-related vaccine injuries don’t exist, so whatever these life-destroying symptoms are that they got after taking the vaccine must not have anything to do with the vaccine.

They even shut up doctors, making these observations about their patients. It’s times like this I can’t help but wonder how much of the unique antivaxx culture in the United States was straight-up empowered by this generally terrible public relations campaign. If you’re going to leave your own vaccine trial volunteers to die in their own medical debt it shouldn’t surprise you that they’ll turn to literally anyone else, even right-wing cranks, in a desperate attempt to save themselves.

 The skepticism of authority in Ancedotals is quite on-brand with the other documentary selections as well. Taking Back the Groove depicts how a music copyright industry that doesn’t value creators screwed disco legend Richie Weeks out of royalties, and ends with a public service announcement that the window for artists to reclaim their rights is closing soon and anyone in Richie Weeks’ situation needs to get in touch with a lawyer fast. There’s also quite a bit of healthy cynicism to woke culture, making the point that the relevant copyright firm promised to treat past black artists equitably in the wake of George Floyd in public while continuing to give Richie Weeks the runaround in private e-mails.

Judging Juries calls attention to just how bad the jury system is in the United States, and how liberal darling Gavin Newsom of all people has sabotaged attempts to reform it. How to Sue the Klan provides a stark reminder of just how hard it could be to prosecute hate crimes as recently as the eighties. In the feature length section, there’s also A Double Life depicting lawyer Stephen Bingham’s life on the run after he was quite blatantly and obviously framed by police for giving George Jackson a gun to assist in a prison uprising.

The best of the films at PAFF show a healthy cynicism to authority figures. Kimkemboi from Kenya imagines a situation where a Kenyan farmboy figures out an algorithm that can perfectly predict the behavior of Wall Street’s own algorithms- the context of which is so absurd that his neighbors basically think, not entirely wrongly, that he’s practicing some form of witchcraft. That Kenyan farmboy doesn’t go to MIT, despite acceptance, but Brief Tender Light documents four actual Africans who do. They unsurprisingly experience culture shock and apprehension of what to do with their newfound knowledge. They also show some alarm at now standard diversity training practices which basically force themselves to out themselves as poor. Port Au Prince discusses a different topic entirely, the refugee experience in Brazil from those fleeing Haiti.

But the nice part about film festivals, and why they’re worth going to instead of just streaming at home, is the small, weird films from dedicated filmmakers who just want people to see their work. Like Supa Hair, a short animated film about a Dominican girl and a magic comb, family-friendly as much of PAFF’s content tries to be. Or African Glory, an hourlong documentary which discusses how the Book of Prophecies appears to imply that Columbus based much of the theory on the practicality of his voyage on past African experience, making much discussion of Mansa Musa and other African kings.

And like any robust film festival, PAFF is not without controversy. For the Love of the Motherland stands accused of being a war propaganda film for having been produced by the Ethiopian government to equivocate on its war in Tigray–the biggest war of this century with more than 600,000 deaths, although you’d never guess that from the dearth of media coverage on the topic. I didn’t see For the Love of the Motherland, so I can’t comment as to its veracity or propagandistic leanings. I do appreciate, at least, that this controversy implicitly acknowledges that not everyone with African heritage is a natural ally- this is how PAFF has so many competing visions despite the festival’s seemingly narrow focus. Africa is, after all, a very big place.