A new festival celebrating African culture launched last week at Collège Universitaire de Saint-Boniface with food and artistic performances.

Afri’k! Festival features visual art, music, film and literature. The event was organized by Ibrahima Diallo, dean of the arts, sciences and business department at the college, in conjunction with Alliance Francaise.

Fellow organizer and friend, Serge Kaptegaine, said the inspiration for the festival came from wanting to share the background of African immigrants in a fun and interesting way. For him, the festival is like a “souvenir” from his home in the Congo.

“Whether you bring with you memories of your family, war, happiness, or sickness, when you speak of it out loud it becomes a shared reality rather than a distant memory,” he said animatedly.

“ It is important for us to invite and move the public. We want to portray our heritage in a positive light.

Serge Kaptegaine

“It is important for us to invite and move the public. We want to portray our heritage in a positive light.”

The festival kicked off Mar. 3 with a fantastic buffet of African cuisine as well as a performance by the talented NAfro Dance group, who created a new song and dance for the festival. Film screenings and musical performances were also a part of the first week’s schedule of events.

The festival continues tonight (Mar. 12) with Has God Forsaken Africa?, a documentary by Musa Dieng Kala playing at the college as well as the Globe theatre. It tells the story of two African boys brutally killed by the landing gears of a plane while fleeing from a continent plagued by never-ending conflict.

A variety of other film screenings, musical performances, literary readings and buffets are planned until Mar. 25. Throughout the festival, the college will also feature illustrations by professional and self-taught artists from all over Africa.

Kaptegaine spoke of the negative illusion that people associate with people of African descent as a result of television, radio and other media sources.

“The festival aims to change this. We are able to positively contribute,” he said.

Published in Volume 63, Number 23 of The Uniter (March 12, 2009)