HERE/NOT HERE
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HERE/NOT HERE is a film with deaf protagonists for people with and without hearing impairments. Created by British hip-hop artist Jonzi D., it fuses dance, music, signing and writing to devise a new visual film language.
HERE/NOT HERE digital, OF m. engl. UT/Gebärdensprache, 29 min.
Guests
Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye has been working as a director and writer since completing her directing studies at ifs Cologne, and served as a curator for the Africa Film Festival Cologne.
In 2021, she co-created the ZDF program TERRA XPRESS “SCHWARZ IN DEUTSCHLAND.” From 2021 to 2022, Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye wrote program concepts and scripts for the youth show VERSTEHEN SIE SPASS, KIDS! Her debut feature film HOMESHOPPERS’ PARADISE premiered at the 57th International Hof Film Festival and screened at the 44th Max Ophüls Prize in Saarbrücken. In 2024, she directed the first episodes of the fourth season of “WIR,” and in 2025, the first three episodes of the second season of the series “ECHT Friends,” which was nominated for the TeleVisionale 2025 Children’s Series Award and has been airing since May 2025. Her current project is the feature film DAS GEHEIMNIS DER GESTOHLENEN MASKE (THE SECRET OF THE STOLEN MASK).
Abel Michael is a filmmaker and owner of the agency ‘AMXI Filmdesign’, which has its headquarters in Cologne. As a cameraman and director, he designs, conceptualises and visualises advertising and promotional films for businesses. His film journey began at the age of 11, when he received his first small digital camera as a birthday gift. He and his friends would use it to make football trick videos in the style of Nike’s ‘Joga Bonito’ series, which they then uploaded to YouTube. At 18, he turned his hobby into a profession and started shooting advertising commissions and wedding videos. His short documentary about the Black Lives Matter movement was shown in Cologne at the 2020 Africa Film Events. For the festival this year, he has worked together with filmmaker Nancy Mac Granaky-Quaye to curate the diaspora short film series.
Christoph Mushayija Rath was born in 1985 in Gatagara (Rwanda). Upon completing his A-levels and mandatory community service in Germany, he spent a year and a half in Guinea, where he worked as a freelance photographer and filmmaker. Back in Germany, he worked for the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Then another one and a half years in West Africa – this time in Senegal, where he again worked as a filmmaker and photographer. He made numerous short films and documentaries with CinéBanlieue, a young filmmakers’ group in Dakar that FilmInitiativ featured at the 2017 edition of AFFK. Since 2011 he has been studying film direction at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB).
Christoph Mushayija Rath’s short film IN DEUTSCHLAND will open the Diaspora Shorts night on the second Saturday of the festival. His other films include VANITY PIG TRAIL (2019), ASCHE (2015), IM WALD (2013), ATTAYA (2009) and SAKKADEN (2005).