Short Film Program
Sat, 30 November – Sun, 1 December 2024
| 6 years and older |
| English |
| Ground Floor |
| Belongs to: Histories of Tanzania |
In cooperation with the NAFASI Film Club, the short film program shows a selection of the diverse filmmaking in Tanzania. The seven films talk about growing up, vulnerability, new subcultural phenomena and recurring traditions – and set thematic highlights that are as diverse as their use of camera, aesthetics and narrative styles.
The short version of Greed for Speed documents the emergence of Singeli at a time when it was still an absolutely marginal phenomenon in the precarious neighborhoods of Dar es Salaam. While the film Daladala Verse impressively tells the story of the Tanzanian mini buses that criss-cross the cities and are more than just a form of transport. WonDarLand, on the other hand, moves in a surreal choreography through the various neighborhoods of Dar es Salaam and to the coast. A young man who returns to an important place from his childhood is at the centre of Naomba Eid Yangu, while in Kimya Kimya the young Aggy is tormented by a painful experience from her past. The film Sahani deals silently with the relationship within a family, including (unfulfilled) wishes, needs and hopes. And the short film Mwanahiti addresses how knowledge about sexual and reproductive health was and is passed on in matrilineal communities.
With films by: Haikaeli Gilliard, Kelvin Kagambo, Matthieu Nieto, Sudi Masomwa, Aurelio Mofuga, Jan Moss and Nicholas Calvin Mwakatobe
The directors
Sudi Masomwa is a seasoned consultant and professional storyteller, with expertise in documentaries and filmmaking. A proud member of the Nafasi Film Club from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. With over eight years of experience, he has successfully collaborated with various renowned brands like Netflix, MFDI and California pictures. Contributing significantly to notable productions like Fatuma and Katope, both streaming on Netflix, as well as Father Africa.
He is well versed in cinematography, story development, script writing, directing and color grading. He is committed to narrating authentic and unique stories, resonating with global audiences.
Aurelio Mofuga is a seasoned technologist and digital artist dedicated to blending art, culture, and storytelling to bring African narratives to life through immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). He is the creator of the Daladala Verse project, which narrates the rich history of Tanzania’s public transportation and its contributions to the nation’s social and economic development. This acclaimed project has been exhibited at major international arts and science festivals, including the ARS Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, Dakar in Senegal and locally in Tanzania.
Kelvin Kagambo is a Tanzanian filmmaker and Journalist with a unique perspective and passion for storytelling. Born and raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Kelvin is inspired by his childhood experiences which fuel his creativity and he believes in making authentic, personal stories with a fresh point of view that encourage the audience to experience the world from a different angle.
Kagambo has been working as a scriptwriter at Ubongo Learning since 2021. He also made four short films, Dogo in 2021, Naomba Eid Yangu in 2022, Chini ya Chaga in 2023 and the award winning Unasemaje? in 2024.
He is also an alumni of DW Film Akademie Fund (2023) and Docubox SRHR Film Project Get Reel (2023).
Haikaeli Gilliard is an arts and health practitioner and curator based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As the Creative Director of Balcony Series – a platform she founded in 2019 – she uses art as a medium for social change, especially in healthcare, arts for well-being, research, and the preservation of indigenous health practices.
One of her notable projects is the Mwanahiti documentary, which explores sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education through the Zaramo tribe’s rite of passage. Since its release in 2021, the documentary has sparked important conversations on SRH, reaching over 20,000 adults and students, with over 2,000 attending in-person screenings. It was screened at the 2023 Zanzibar International Film Festival, and the 2024 Accra Indie Film Festival, and is now part of the Tanzania National Museum’s permanent collection.
Haikaeli believes in the power of art and creativity to promote health, make health information more accessible, and serve as a healing tool to benefit communities.
Jan Moss is a film director, DJ, activist, curator, promotor, and a intermedia artists who mainly uses flm, sculpture and sound. He is interested in the origin of dreams and ambitions, sustainable development, the cycles of self-regulation of nature, or the role of the sublime in conditioning social needs, e.g. the commodifcation of the experience of fear in nineteenth-century horror literature, i.e. the relation between the fog and the smog.
He studied fine arts at the academies in Krakow, Oslo, and Malmö. Since 2018 he’s been closely collaborating with the Ugandan record label Nyege Nyege Tapes, creating music videos and a series of documentary films Nyege Nyege Tapes Tapes.
He worked as a content consultant or creator in projects for documenta13 in Athens and Kassel, ilm Study Center at Harvard University, Mies van Der Rohe Pavillion in Barcelona, Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris, the Lithuanian Pavillion for 16th Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Project Room, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2019), Handbook for city dwellers, Krakow (2017), Noplace, Oslo (2017), Hotel Pro Forma, Copenhagen (2016) and group exhibitions: Ghetto Biennale, Port-au-Prince (2018), Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2016), Futura, Prague (2015), National Gallery, Ulan Bator (2014).
Nicholas Calvin Mwakatobe is a Dar es Salaam-based filmmaker and visual artist. He is interested in stories, as a tool for making meaning of our existence in a multispecies changing world.
In 2018 he founded PichaTime, a platform focusing on storytelling as a critical tool for public engagement in issues relating to history and collective memory. Since 2018 they have hosted workshops, public performances, and collaborated with various institutions to produce short films, and to host conversations and presentations with guest speakers from various backgrounds: art, science, engineering, poetry, music, anthropology.
Nicholas is a British Library’s Resonatiosn Artist Residency fellow (2023), a Video Consortium fellow (2023), a Civitella Ranieli Visual Art Fellow (2019, Italy), and Apex Art Visual Art fellow (2019, NYC). He has worked locally and internationally in media, art and film projects.
Born and raised in Dar es salaam city on 11th Feb, 1999 to a social worker father and a stay at home mother.
„Fell in love with films ever since I was young, thanks to my late father. I have been in love with acting ever since I watched Home Alone and Titanic. Started journaling when I was in primary school, ‘Dear diary’ days. My interest in reading books and writing sparked when I was in secondary school in my third year, form three after I read two novels, Honor by Elif Shafak and Adam’s Fall by Sandra Brown caught my attention in the world of literature and other genres. I became interested in filmmaking during my late secondary school years. Taught myself script writing, thanks to Google and YouTube. Since then, I wrote and directed a 6 minutes short film called Kipimo, under the assistance and guidance of Nafasi Film Club. I am currently involved with another project, Mkufunzi, which is a very personal work I’ve written which is yet to see the light and is still in works. It’s a story about my mother, about an incident she encountered in her late teenage days.“
Matthieu Nieto (aka Matthieu Rainbow) is a multidisciplinary artist dedicated to using performing arts as a means to foster social change, challenge cultural narratives, and inspire personal transformation. Matthieu holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts (2017) and a Bachelor’s in Dance (2015) from Paris 8 University. As the founder and artistic director of Mouvements Migrateurs, a Toulouse-based organization, Matthieu has been producing impactful work since 2013. He also leads the WonDarLand Project, a vibrant dance and performance initiative in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
With more than 15 years of experience across Europe and Africa, Matthieu has developed a transcultural perspective on art-making, allowing him to blend genres and bridge diverse communities. His artistic philosophy centers on the body as a dynamic canvas for exploring and reimagining identity. This perspective comes alive in the varied dance styles and artistic practices Matthieu has studied, including contemporary dance, Vogue, Krump, Butoh, West African Dance, Theatre, and Singing.
Matthieu’s work is distinguished by a fusion of popular and experimental aesthetics, celebrating multiplicity, vulnerability, and poetic expression. His notable works include I Am Not My Color (2014) and I Came Here to Talk (2018), solos that delve into themes of race, personal history, and self-perception. Boy Band (2021), in collaboration with Rwanda’s Amizero Dance Company, explores masculinity, while Human/Forest (2022), created with 14 dance students from Muda Africa in Dar es Salaam, reflects on the interconnection between human “concrete jungles” and nature’s forests. Pop (2022), a duet with South African choreographer Thamsanqa Majela, examines trauma linked to discrimination and premiered at the National Arts Festival in South Africa. His latest work, WonDarLand (2024), is a short dance film created with Tanzanian artists, guiding audiences on a dream-like journey towards self-acceptance; it was recently selected for the Chéries Chéris Festival in Paris. Matthieu’s upcoming solo, Neverland (2025), will take the form of a cabaret-inspired choreographic album, weaving together visual memories and original music to explore escapism, self-love, and identity fictions.
Beyond his creative work, Matthieu teaches yoga and leads dance workshops designed to foster self-discovery, acceptance, community building, and holistic wellness through movement.