Founder Shares Insights On Impact Of International Jurors, Quality Of African Films

Founder of the Kaduna International Film Festival, Israel Audu Kashim, has shared insights on the impact of its international jurors, on the festival, the quality of African films entries, and the newest additions to the festival.

With the festival’s introduction of an international jury, which spanned members from Israel, France, India, Egypt among others in the past two editions, it saw a few submissions from jurors’ countries as seen with Russia this year.

Conversely, increased submissions from a country as Uganda (which surpassed Nigerian submissions at the festival in 2024), saw the inclusion of Ugandan film experts on the international jury this year.

But with the increase in submissions arises the question of film quality and the danger of foreign overflooding of platform with foreign films to the detriment of Nigerian and African films/filmmakers of which the festival is dedicated to supporting.

Kashim allayed the later fear by noting that the festival via the Indigenous Film Category will ensure that foreign submissions have its own space on the platform without necessarily overshadowing the local and African films.

“We have a nine-member international jury which cuts across the continent of Africa, Asia, and Europe whose aim to contribute and create more awareness about the festival. They are also there to offer their perspectives of film and cultures of their various countries.

“It depends on the indigenous category of entries we have, if we have more indigenous entries from Africa, or maybe from Nigeria, we will set up a category for that to ensure we support entries that quite good but owing to technicalities from other foreign countries compared to other African countries. The jury will evaluate what we have to ensure everything good and worth celebrating will be identified at the festival.”

On the quality of film submissions at the festival on its eighth edition, Kashim observed that so far there has been more submissions from Nigeria than Uganda, followed by submissions from Russia.

However, submissions from Nigeria are largely from the southern and English film industry, Nollywood, rather than Hausa speaking northern Nigeria, where the festival is resident.

“More people believe that film festival entries must be cinema standard. Hence, submission of such works. On the other hand, that is why we barely see entries from northern Nigeria because they believe their content is not festival-worthy. That doesn’t mean that films are not produced in the north, rather what is produced is largely for internet (YouTube) consumption.

“The quality of entries from the Yoruba and English-speaking films from the south has improved. Where are not where we were before. While a lot of entries from Europe and America, which has all film equipment and technicalities are largely very good. We also identify with good entries from Uganda, which is on the second largest submissions at the festival this year.”

Meantime, KADIFF has adopted a new strategy of working with local and international organizations involved with the arts/culture, entertainment industry in Nigeria, to support local filmmakers during and after the festival. It involves identifying and working with organizations whose mandate coincides with its annual theme.

This it began last year, by collaborating with the EU in the ‘One Million Naira Grant’ to train and support local filmmakers to create films that addresses the festival’s 2025 theme “Film for Social Impact”. It further partnered with Governor’s Wife Forum to screen such movies, and embassies to show nominated and winning works from their countries. It is currently fostering relations with UNODC and IOM to help address issues of drug trafficking and migration.

“This year, we are focused mainly on the use of film to drive social change and making impact. There are so many creatives who have been doing a lot in this area. We want to identify with and support them.

“These creatives also include comedians, skit makers whose works drive and impact social change. We want to bring them closer and celebrate them because the world is now on social media,” averred Kashim.

Similarly, KADIFF partnered with MTN this year to introduce Audience Best Film category, via voting. Nigerians and KADIFF enthusiasts with MTN lines, can vote for their best films at the festival post jury’s release of nominated and selected films, in May.

Presently, with over 100+ submissions spanning 16 countries from Africa, Europe and Asia, and submissions set to end April 23, KADIFF 2025 opens August 26 to 30th.