The annual film festival handed out jury, audience and special prizes during an awards brunch on Presidents’ Day at the PAFF Filmmakers Lounge, located in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, CA.
With a total of 154 films, representing 34 countries all vying for accolades, Haiti’s “Stones in the Sun,” directed by Patricia Benoit walked away with the top prize of Best Feature Narrative, while Canadian director Sudz Sutherland of “Home Again,” a movie about Jamaican deportees received the Festival Choice Prize, given by the Pan African Film Festival and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts/LA (BAFTA/LA).
“Free Angela and All Political Prisoners,” the political documentary executive produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith earned the Best Documentary Award and British director Roy Agyemang received a special recognition award for his historical documentary “Mugabe: Villain or Hero?” which profiled Zimbabwe’s longest severing leader President Robert Mugabe.
Celebrating its 21st anniversary, the Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF), is America’s largest and most prestigious Black film festival and was founded in 1992 by award-winning actor Danny Glover, Emmy Award-winning actress Ja’Net DuBoi and Ayuko Babu.
Each year, the festival screens more than 150 films made by and/or about people of African descent from the United States, Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the South Pacific, Latin America, Europe and Canada and holds the distinction of being the largest Black History Month event in the country.
