Dear friends,

We are pleased to inform you that the 22nd African, Asian and Latin America Film Festival will take place in Milano from March the 19th to the 25th, 2012.

This edition's programme will feature a thematic section on the funniest comedies from Africa, Asia and Latin America of recent production - selected with the collaboration of Italian comedians Gino and Michele from "Zelig", the famous Italian tv programme of cabaret.

In its twenty-one years, the Festival had devoted only one retrospective to comedy in Africa, a genre that is not very present in African films. Today, with the advent all over Africa of a more popular cinema, produced and distributed in video, in the wake of the Nigerian phenomenon of Nollywood, the comic genre is beginning to develop as films of entertainment but also as sharp analysis and social catharsis. The genre is also enjoying great popular success in Asia and Latin America.

To give a voice to this new trend and also to give dignity to a genre that has always been ignored by film critics, the Festival has decided to create a section that presents the most hilarious and scathing comedies of recent film production in the three continents. To select them, we asked Gino and Michele, the founders of Zelig, the workshop par excellence of comedy in Italy, to help us.

For this special section, we would like to receive any screener you may have of the most recent comedies you've produced or distributed (since 2010) for consideration.

So, please, if you have any, enter the film(s), completing the entry form and send a DVD for the Selection Committee to our postal address as soon as possible.

Please also send the biography and filmography of the director and informative material on the film.

The Rules of the Festival and the entry form, can also be consulted and completed on the Festival's Internet site: www.festivalcinemaafricano.org

Please, do not hesitate to contact us for any other information,

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

For the COE
Alessandra Speciale