Brescia hosts the V Afrobrix Festival
In January 2025, the second part of the V Afrobrix Festival will take place, which will bring together African and Afro-descendant musicians, filmmakers and thinkers in the Italian city of Brescia. The first part took place in September. MN has spoken with two of its leaders, the Comboni missionary Fr. Fabrizio Colombo and Francesca Sanneh.
In 2020 many spaces were closed due to the pandemic, but there were others that opened that same year. Father Fabrizio Colombo, an Italian Comboni missionary born in 1967, wanted to develop a festival linked to the world of African descent. He had tried it in Rome, but it was in Brescia where it became a reality. With extensive experience in the cultural and artistic world, something that is clearly seen in the direction of a festival that has already completed five years and that seeks to reflect that “Africa has overflowed, it has crossed the borders with the diaspora,” Colombo affirms that “we cannot only speak of the continent 5,000 kilometers away, but of an Africa that is now spread throughout the world.” This also influences his idea of Mission because, as he adds, “for me, as a Comboni, this is also the Mission. The idea that the Mission is the missionary who leaves 5,000 or 6,000 kilometers to black Africa does not exist. In reality it still exists, because there are other problems there, other things, but it also exists here. For a Comboni Missionary in Europe this is the Mission, precisely because a situation has been created, including social and political, that is a challenge for the Church and for the missionaries here,” he adds.
From the Decade of Afro-Descendancy (2015-2024) “the idea of creating a festival that brings together music, art, cinema and all forms of Afro-European art was born. Behind it, obviously, are values that are typical of the struggle of Afro-descendants, such as the fight against racism and discrimination. And here, in Italy, above all that which is the fight for the right of citizenship” explains Father Colombo. A festival that, shortly after being born, gave rise to a broader project. In the house of the Comboni missionaries of Brescia, a place was set up so that “the Afro-descendant world can find spaces to create, whether in the musical world, whether from the point of view of video, photography, from art, podcast, etc., so that the festival is not just one moment of the year, because during the rest of the time there are events in this center,” Father Fabrizio tells us.
The celebration of identity
In a European context of the rise of the extreme right and its anti-immigration discourses that do not recognize the existence of a multicultural Europe with numerous identities, Hadija Francesca Sanneh (Brescia, 1997), one of the coordinators of Afrobrix, affirms “that what is beautiful is celebrate an identity, but an identity understood as a concept of openness. The Afrobrix project seeks to celebrate that identity through creativity and artistic creation in all its dimensions. For this, freedom is fundamental because, as stated in their manifesto, “the exercise of creativity cannot exist without freedom”, which they understand both from an artistic point of view – “I live this freedom because in this sense we do not limit the artistic form,” says Father Colombo, “and from a socio-political point of view. In this sense, Sanneh explains that “in addition to the phenotypic demarcation, there is a whole question of class conception that greatly limits the freedom of the majority of people of African descent. Because the majority, inside or outside Africa, continue to live in a situation of economic precariousness, which derives entirely from history and global political and economic orders. (…) If a person has difficulty making ends meet, they cannot think about making music. Or as happens so often on a large scale, many young migrants dream of something artistic, which could be music, cinema or dance, and those stories are lost because they have to survive.
Although volunteers and organizers facilitate the dynamics of the festival, there are several challenges. The first and most obvious is the financial issue, which maintains self-sustainability as one of the main challenges. The political challenge also stands out, because although the city of Brescia is governed by a corporation related to the sensitivities of Afrobrix, the same does not happen at the regional level, where a right-wing coalition governs. According to Father Colombo, “it seems good to us, because it means that we are pointing the finger at the right thing.” Added to this is a narrative challenge because, as the Comboni missionary adds, “in the associative world, Catholic or non-Catholic, when people talk about Africa, they refer to a continent that has problems, war, hunger, to corruption, to the arms trade (…). With Afrobrix we have the challenge of saying: “No, there is another possible narrative.”
A social mirror
In addition to these challenges, they have also encountered the challenge of maintaining novelty and being a reflection of the environment. «More than anything, have a little sense of what is happening now in society and in the Afro world, as well as in the global evolution of thought and narratives. The Festival has to be a bit of a mirror of that,” says Father Colombo when we talk about the greatest difficulties for an event like Afrobrix.
In search of a narrative
The first part of the festival took place between September 6 and 8, although the concerts on the last day were canceled due to rain. However, a good sample of the emerging Afro-Italian music scene could be enjoyed. Big Boa, Trio Brazuka, Samia, Thoe, Em, Yusbwoi and Epoque were the groups and artists that took the stage at the V edition of the Festival. A mix of styles in which the jazzrap or Afropop, to finish with rhythms of afrobeats. In addition to the musical part, it was possible to enjoy a wide gastronomic and craft offering, with representation from several African countries.
Between the 15th and 17th of this month the second part of the Festival will take place, which, for Father Colombo, is “where the ideas are, the strong content.” On the one hand, they have a competition for Afro-European short films to which directors from various European countries are usually invited. On the other hand, they have a selection of Afro-European films such as Le Marchand de Sable, by Afro-Parisian director Steve Achiepo, or Dahomey, by Mati Diop, which was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlinale last February, although they also introduce some films from the African continent, such as Goodbye Julia, by Sudanese director Mohamed Kordofani. To the cinematographic offer – which this year will take place at the Nuovo Eden cinemas, the most important independent theater in the city – is added a series of artistic proposals, talks, colloquiums and conferences that try to escape the traditional format. Francesca Sanneh explains that they try to “bring the analytical part through a conversation that can make people understand the theory of the topic at hand, but always accompanied by experience” which, for example, takes the form of dance performances, as in the 2023 edition. With this combination they have managed to attract all types of audiences to the reflections proposed by the Festival.
For Sanneh, one of the things he likes most about Afrobrix is the fusion of different roots, origins and realities, “when things mix. For example, an Afro-Brazilian band is playing and there are Senegalese ladies dancing as if they were listening to music from their country. These are moments, according to the coordinator, in which the circle closes, since “themes are interwoven that tend not to be the same thing, but that come from something common and express something common, in a more or less universal sense.” Afrobrix will close one more circle this November, waiting to open a new one, intertwined with the previous ones, in next year’s edition. Because it will continue to be necessary to celebrate Afro-Peanism.
