With internationally acclaimed director Newton Aduaka in attendance, AfricAvenir invites you on Thursday, 13 February 2014 at 20h00 to the German Premiere of Winner of the FIPRESCI International Critics Award at FESPACO „One Man's Show"(DCP, Original French with English Subtitles) at Hackesche Höfe Kino. Shot against the background of Sarkozy's debate on "National Identity",'One Man's Show' is the gripping portrait of Emil, a once successful Cameroonian actor living in France, who at his 50th birthday discovers that he has cancer. Structured in vignettes, the film follows the tortured Emil as he descends into existential crisis, struggling to connect with his son and confronting the failure of his relationships with the three women in his life.

Somewhere between Dante's Divine Comedy and Stand-Up Comedy, between Theatre und Performance, the film in a poetic and moving way examines the interior world of a man doubly disconnected. With the phenomenal and hypnotic Emile Abossolo M'bo as the tormented Emil, the film asks in an intelligent and subtle way, what it means to be an artist and what is the price to pay especially if you are a Black artist struggling to stay faithful to yourself and your convictions.

„Based on a very simple scenario of the downfall of a man who believed he could be king, Aduaka presents a touching and subtle film, of which every scene comes back to haunt us once we close our eyes." Olivier Barlet, Africultures

The screening will be followed by an open discussion with director Newton Aduaka and by a small reception in the cinema foyer.

With the financial supprt of Engagement Global from funds allocated by the German Ministry of Cooperation, Brot für die Welt - Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst, Humboldt University, Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation and in co-operation with Africiné, SEV Magazin, Club der Freunde von RFI, Berlin Poche, |+| rendez-vous-cine.de, Exberliner, radio multicult.fm, Art Labour Archives, Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD), Berlinda, Zentrum Moderner Orient and Planète Métis.

Newton Aduaka about his film
„It is the first film since I left film school that I shot, produced and edited completely on my own, it has been 20 years! I felt disillusioned with cinema, and this film brought me back to cinema. I wanted to make a film which really takes account of the seriousness of the situation: life goes too quickly. (…) The film tells a story that I wanted to tell already ten years ago: A successful Black actor is confronted with his limitations imposed by a European context. I don't speak about politics; I totally concentrate on the struggle of this man. I show the price one has to pay to be an artist."

Press Reviews
"In Osmosis with his actors, (note the magic presence of Aïssa Maïga), who all take just as many risks as he does in capturing only the essential, Aduaka dedicates this living painting featuring all our fragilities to Frantz Fanon who knew them so well. Based on a simple and reduced scenario of the downfall of a man who believed he could be king, Aduaka presents a touching and subtle film, of which every scene comes back to haunt us once we close our eyes."
Olivier Barlet, Africultures

"Largely, the film is a coming-to-terms narrative and its dedication to Fanon, a psychiatrist, intellectual and revolutionary, locates it firmly within a discursive framework, where history, interracial desire, migration, exile, displacement, identity and trauma are crucial anchors."
Jude G. Akudinobi, University of California

"The Cameroonian Emile Abossolo Mbo offers us a great cinematographic experience between Dante's divine comedy and Stand-up comedy, betwenn theatre and performance."
RFI

"With One Man's Show, Newton Aduaka has created a bold and daring film. By choosing to renew his cinema by incorporating improvisation and music, he proves that cinema has to invoke the other arts if it wants to be more than a technical virtuosity. As Hervé Bazin said, cinema has to stay impure."
Alceny Saidou Barry, Lobservateur.bf

"Aduaka has turned to a genre that can almost be described as experimental. It is his way of saying: "I am searching my own path, I am trying to set up a new model of my own to tell stories". With this "experimental" cinema (in the positive sense of the word), he shows that he wants to makle things change, like Djibril Diop Mambéty and the likes before him (…)"
Baba Diop, Président de la Fédération Africaine de la Critique Cinématographique (FACC)

"When a filmmaker, after having so successfully worked within other genres and produced major films, returns to such a intimate approach, it means that he is questioning at the same time himself and his relation to cinema. One Man's Show is indeed a transitory work, a wonderfully sincere meditation. Newton Aduaka foundhis alter ego in Émile Abossolo Mbo, the incarnation of his own anxieties in relation to his creative work and his relation to the world as a whole... and to women."
Olivier Barlet, Africultures

"With Emil as a character and subject, the film (…) involves introspection, quests for reconciliation and redemption, and a difficult subject, mortality. Like Dante's masterpiece, it explores humanity and the poetic imagination. Hence, Aduaka formulates eclectic aesthetic and narrative registers, suffused with symbols, themes, inter-textual references, self-reflexive moments, and philosophical musings."
Jude G. Akudinobi, University of California

Director: Newton Aduaka
Newton Aduaka was born in Eastern Nigeria in 1966. At the age of four his family sought refuge in Lagos after the Nigerian Civil War, or the Biafran War. He moved to the UK in the mid 80s to study Engineering, but discovered cinema, graduating from the London Film School in 1990. In 2001 he directed his debut feature film Rage. His second feature film Ezra won the Etalon d'or de Yennenga, the highest honour for an African Film Maker at the festival of pan-African cinema, FESPACO in 2007.One Man's Show is his third feature film. Newton Aduaka currently lives in Paris.

Filmography & Awards

ONE MAN'S SHOW (2013)
Prix de la Critique - 23e édition Fespaco 2013
Sélection Festival de Mill Valley, USA.
Sélection à la Cinémathèque de Vancouver.
Sélection au AIM film festival d'Edimbourg.
Sélection au Africa Eye de Cambridge, Cardiff et Bristol.
Sélectionné au AITP d'Amesterdam.
Sélectionné au FCAT de Cordoue.
Projeté dans le cadre d'une rétrospective Aduaka aux Rencontres Cinématographiques de Manosque.
Projeté au Jeu de Paume dans le cadre du programme ‘Transgresseurs'.

EZRA (2007)
Etalon d'or de Yennenga (Golden Stallion) Fespaco
Grand Jury Prize - 28ème festival international du film de Durban
Grand Prix (Licorne d'Or) - 27ème festival international du film d'Amiens
Prix du public long métrage - 27ème festival international du film d'Amiens
Alhambra d'Argent (Meilleur Réalisateur) - Festival de Granada Cine del Sur
Prix des Nations-Unies pour la Paix et la Tolérance
Prix Humanitas - Nomination
Official selection- World Cinema Competition - Sundance Film Festival
Official Selection 46e Semaine Internationale de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival
Diffusion sur Arte - Édition DVD Arte

RAGE (2001)
Prix Oumarou Ganda - Meilleur premier film - Fespaco
Meilleur réalisateur - Meilleur premier film, Pan-African Film Festival, Los Angeles
Prix Jeunesse, Vue's d'Afrique Montréal
Grand Prix OCIC - Festival d'Amiens
Carlton Television UK's Multicultural Achievement Award for Cinema
Sortie Nationale: Grande-Bretagne - Édition DVD par Metrodome.
Diffusion sur Arte

AÏCHA (2004)
Sélection officielle : 61ème Mostra de Venise
Sélection officielle : Toronto International Film Festival
Sélection officielle : Festiival international de Clermont-Ferrand
Sélection officielle : Fespaco
Sélection officielle : Oberhausen Internationale Kurzfilmtage

SALE NÈGRE (2004)
Court-métrage de la collection Paris La Métisse

BON VOYAGE (2004)
Campagne de lutte contre le SIDA (Scenarios From Africa)

L'EXPERT (2004)
Campagne de lutte contre le SIDA (Scenarios From Africa)

FUNERAL (2002)
Quinzaine des Réalisateurs - Cannes 2002
Sélection officielle : Rio International Film Festival

ON THE EDGE (1997)
Meilleur court-métrage - Festival of African Asian & Latin American Cinema Milan
Meilleur court-métrage - Fespaco 1999
Meilleur court-métrage - BFM International Film Festival London 2000
Diverses mentions en festivals

German Premiere
One Man's Show
Newton Aduaka, Fiction, Nigeria/France, 2012, 75 min
With: Emil Abossolo Mbo, Aïssa Maïga, Odile Roire, Fatima Adoum, Kwame Pocrain
Original French with English Subtitles

Thursday, 13 February 2014
20h00
Entrance: 7,50 €
Discount: Berlin Pass, Gilde Pass, Heavy User Card, 5/10 Tickets Cards can be used by two people

Tickets & Information
030/ 283 4603

Hackesche Höfe Kino
Rosenthalerstr. 40/41
10187 Berlin
S Hackescher Markt
U Weinmeisterstraße

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