Road to Sunrise movie to screen in the USA

Shemu Joyah’s movie The Road To Sunrise has been selected for screening in the 26th annual Pan African Film Festival (Paff) to take place from February 8 to 19 2018 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

This was communicated by Ayuko Babu, the executive director of the festival and a board member of the California Film Commission.

The screening will take place at the all-digital Cinemark Theaters BHC 15.

However, for screening at the theatres, the film has to be in DCP or BluRay format. Joyah says his company called First Dawn Arts is currently converting the film to those formats.

All selected films are supposed to be in Los Angeles by January 15 to give the organisers enough time for testing the films.

The stated goal of Paff is “to promote cultural understanding among peoples of African descent” through exhibiting art and film. The Los Angeles Times in 2013 called the film festival “the largest black film festival” in the United States.

This is the second time the film will be screening at an American film festival after its debut screening in September 2017 at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival where it won the Special Recognition Award for a Narrative Feature Film.

“The film that will be screened at Paff is slightly different from the one we screened here at home,” said Joyah, the director of the film.

“Right from the outset we decided to have two cuts of the film: one for local screenings and another one for international screenings.”

The Road To Sunrise is a human drama about exploitation, gender-based violence, love, hope, friendship, and the untiring human spirit in its quest for survival and freedom.

Central to its feminist narrative is the theme of self-empowerment for the woman.

The film stars Mirriam Phiri in the leading role as Rubia, Chantelle B. Phiri as Watipa and Madock Masina as Shoti.