Who Will Start Another Fire is a collection of 9 films by emerging filmmakers from underrepresented communities around the world. Each of these stories are personal and distinctly told, but unified by themes of rebirth and growing as above, so below, growing into your future and into your past rather than forgetfully forward. These films deny the idea of art for art's sake and do not exist in self-designed aesthetic vacuums. Their creation represents a necessary reckoning for their makers and so perhaps to the viewers. These are growing films by growing filmmakers, made for the future and the past, all brought to you to experience for the first time now and afterwards.

The title Who Will Start Another Fire alludes to Malawian poet Jack Mapanje’s Before Chilembwe Tree (1981), in which he asks,

“Who will start another fire?” By omitting the question mark and retaining his language, we propose an answer to his question. 

ABOUT DEDZA FILMS:

Dedza Films is a distribution initiative dedicated to curating & facilitating the distribution of films from the next wave with a focus on underrepresented communities and early works of emerging storytellers. Our mission is to curate, community build, and partner with other initiatives and organizations focusing on changing the landscape. Click here to learn more about DEDZA Films.

ABOUT THE FILMS:

LIKE FLYING

dir. by Peier Tracy Shen / 15 Minutes / USA / 2020 

A young Chinese-American girl navigates her childhood through her parents’ broken relationship.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Nashville Film Festival 2020, Palm Springs International Shortfest 2021, Cinequest Film Festival 2021.

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FAMILY TREE

dir. by Nicole Amani Magabo Kiggundu / 17 Minutes / Uganda / 2020 

We meet Nagawa, an 8-year-old schoolgirl, whose day is almost like any other. She’s presenting a school project about her family tree to her classmates and teacher. According to Nagawa, her family consists of just herself, her Mum, and her Dad, who she only gets to see once a week. This is her normal. When her mother Margaret picks up Nagawa from school, she doesn't have the heart to tell her daughter that her beloved father has been in a terrible accident. They arrive at the hospital to pay vigil. Her father, an Honourable in the Ugandan parliament is widely popular, and a few people are assembling outside the private ward— including his mistresses with his and their children. Nagawa doesn’t know any of these people and they don’t know her. What follows for Nagawa is an awkward, confusing and heartbreaking afternoon as her parents’ betrayal sets in. 

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Pan-African Film Festival 2020, Ngalabi International Shorts Film Festival 2020, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival 2020, Capitol Hill Film Festival 2020

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TROUBLEMAKER

dir. by Olive Nwosu / 11 Minutes / Nigeria / 2019

Obi is hot, bored, and desperate for something to do. When his best friend, Emeka, gives him a packet of firecrackers, the boys decide to have some fun. However, things escalate in unexpected ways, as Obi learns for the first time that actions have consequences, and that there are still things he cannot understand. 

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Discover Film Festival 2019 (WINNER, Best Student Film ), Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival 2020, Queens World Film Festival 2020 (WINNER, Best Director), Aspen Film Festival 2020, Carmarthen Bay Film Festival 2020, Albany Film Festival 2020, Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival 2020, Barcelona International African Film Festival 2020, Raindance Film Festival, Ciné Regards Africains 2020, Africa in Motion Film Festival 2020, New York African Film Festival 2020.

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POLYGRAPH

dir. by Samira Saraya / 20 Minutes / Israel / 2020

Based on a true story, Yasmine, an openly lesbian Arab nurse living in Tel Aviv, finds out that her lover Or, an intelligence officer in the Israeli army, has been reporting on their relationship. Their liaison is further strained by the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict and by Yasmine’s sister’s visit, who arrives from the West Bank not knowing that she is going to meet the occupying enemy at her own sister’s house. 

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival 2020 (WINNER - Honorable Mention), Queer Screen Film Festival 2021, Rose Filmdagen 2021, Wicked Queer: Boston’s LGBT Film Festival 2021, Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2021, MIX Milano Festival 2021.

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THE LIGHTS ARE ON, NO ONE'S HOME

dir. by Faye Ruiz / 10 Minutes / USA / 2020

Mar, a trans woman who left home years ago, returns to her old neighborhood to find her childhood home. Upon her return, she’s confronted with the changes that gentrification has brought to the place she once knew so well. With all her old paths back home gone, she wanders the streets aimlessly. Memories of her early transition, the places she went, her family, her best friend and a drug addiction she can’t seem to shake resurface in unexpected and painful ways. Forced to contend with the ways in which she has remained static in a place that has seemingly changed overnight, she searches for a way to make peace with these changes or maybe just a familiar place to rest her head.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival 2021, Outfest Fusion Film Festival 2021, Long Distance Film Festival 2021.

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BY WAY OF CANARSIE

dir. by Emily Packer & Lesley Steele / 14 Minutes / USA / 2020

A wandering portrait of an oft-neglected shoreline community, By Way of Canarsie imagines possible futures at odds with a peaceful present. Through brief encounters, observational mise-en-scene, and expressive use of analog film, we begin to understand this predominantly black New York City neighborhood’s shared desires for recognition and respect. As some community members advocate for a commuter ferry at the local pier, others reflect on the current use of natural resources, the indigenous history, and the impending environmental concerns that encompass Canarsie’s relationship with the water as it exists today. The competing futures for Canarsie Pier present complications about how and for whom this public space serves.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: BlackStar Film Festival 2020, Twin Cities Black Film Festival 2020, Better Cities Film Festival 2020, DOC NYC 2020, Prismatic Ground Film Festival 2021, Third Horizon Film Festival 2021.

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THE ROSE OF MANILA

dir. by Alex Westfall / 12 Minutes / Philippines / 2020

An imagining of the formative years of Imelda Marcos, who, as one half of the Marcos regime, would become infamous for embezzling billions from the country to sustain her extravagant lifestyle. Here, the fate of a young girl and an entire nation become entangled as the absent mother of a country is born.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: San Diego Asian Film Festival 2020, National Film Festival for Talented Youth 2020, BFI Future Film Festival 2021, Ivy Film Festival 2021, CineYouth - Chicago International Film Festival 2021, Athens International Film and Video Festival 2021.

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SLIP

dir. by Nicole Otero / 11 Minutes / USA / 2019

A woman arrives home at the end of a regular day, but as she begins to turn in for the night, she is overcome with a sense of restlessness. Unable to fit inside her own world, she goes back out into the night. Her journey around a mostly vacant city, obscured by darkness, cascades in space and time, away from one feeling and in search of another.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Indie Memphis Film Festival 2019.

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NOT BLACK ENOUGH

dir. by Jermaine Manigault / 19 Minutes / USA / 2020

A young African-American man struggling to find his identity within his community meets a persuasive relic of the past. 

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Flatpack Festival 2020, L.A. Shorts International Film Festival 2020, Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2020, Hollyshorts Film Festival 2020, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2020, Emerging Lens Cultural Film Festival 2021.