Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe

Source: Verona Rose Photography

Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe

Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe, founder of the British Urban Film Festival (BUFF),  is gearing up for a bumper 20th edition of the festival.

To mark the anniversary it has been ramped up from one to two-weeks-long for the anniversary, taking place in London from October 10-24.

Anyiam-Osigwe started his career working for Menelik Shabazz at Black Filmmaker Magazine.

“Black Filmmaker Magazine was the launchpad for me to look into the world of Black film and try and dispel those myths with regards to – do Black films make money? Do they travel overseas? Is there an audience for it?” recalls Anyiam-Osigwe.

He launched the festival in 2005, inspired by Kanya King, who founded the Mobo awards in 1996, which celebrates UK music of Black origin.

Anyiam-Osigwe secretly re-mortgaged his parents’ house to get the funds to launch the festival, after they had put him on the house deed.

“Being the son of Nigerian parents, I couldn’t tell them, for fear of my life,” laughs Anyiam-Osigwe. ”There’s a stigma with Nigerian children that you have to be blue collar to succeed in life and I was kind of a rebel.” 

It is this rebel spirit that has helped Anyiam-Osigwe to keep going what is understood to be the longest standing Black-owned film festival in the UK, without any long-term institutional support. The festival has received some public support from the likes of Film London, BFI, BBC Film and Tower Hamlets over the years, as well as BT and Apple.

“It’s not really had that three-to-five-year sponsorship that we would have needed to really take BUFF to the next level.”

This year, festival sponsors include Lime Pictures, DCP Square and Mogul Magazine.

Moving forward 

Water Girl

Source: BUFF

Water Girl

Anyiam-Osigwe stepped down as BUFF festival director in 2021 to become artistic director of the Windrush Caribbean Film Festival for its 75th anniversary edition in 2023. However he is now back at the helm with the help of festival manager Annie Araba, and his wife Clare Anyiam-Osigwe as co-chair.

The festival is fully back in London this year after a brief detour to Halifax for a couple of editions, and it looks likely to remain in the capital for the foreseeable.

Venues include Odeon Greenwich, Rich Mix Shoreditch and Genesis Cinema.

“We got wind from the local council [in Halifax] and from the mayor and from various bodies that finances were going to be reined in, and the finances that they gave us for the two years that we were there were very nominal,” he explains. ”There were other factors too, like the cancellation of the high-speed rail link from London to the north… It was unfortunate, because we were just getting started and established in the region.”

A potential date move to around the spring time is possible, owing to October being a congested month for UK festivals, with BFI London Film Festival and London Breeze Film Festival also running.

BUFF has also experimented with distribution in recent years, with BUFF Studios releasing films including Peter Macjob’s Ireke: Rise Of The Maroons with the support of Vue and Odeon cinemas in July of this year, the first ever Nollywood film to release on the same day in Nigeria and the UK. It was also the first film released as part of a year-round African season BUFF has launched in response to the BFI pausing its long-running African Odysseys season.

“When the story dropped that the BFI was finding other ways to showcase African film, not through African Odysseys, that became a red flag, and an opportunity,” he says.

The festival has noticed an increase in submissions of African content. African films playing in BUFF this year include the UK premieres of Nnamdi Kanaga’s Water Girl from Nigeria and Harry Bentil’s Letters To Goddo, from Ghana.

A spin-off festival, focusing on mental health, is also in the works. “We got just over 1,000 submissions – it’s been a record year,” reveals Anyiam-Osigwe. “A lot of those submissions touched on issues of well-being and mental health. For those reasons my wife Clare, who has a doctorate in well-being and dermatology, and is a filmmaker herself, came up with the idea for a wellness film festival. Within the [BUFF] festival this year we’re holding a launch summit to make people know that in April next year we’ll be launching the wellness film festival properly.”

But at its core, BUFF retains the same mission it had 20 years ago – to be a place to celebrate and promote diversity, in all its forms.

“The worst feeling in the world is to feel ignored,” says Anyiam-Osigwe. “Fundamentally, the focus with BUFF has always been to make sure that the platform establishes visibility, credibility, eligibility, and also a pathway to an income which we’re developing through Buff Studios.”

This year’s line-up includes Christopher M. Anthony’s boxing drama Heavyweight starring Jason Isaacs, Jordan Bolger and Nicholas Pinnock, who is also a producer; Van Alpert’s Venice Beach documentary Skategoat, executive produced by Gwyneth Paltrow; and Johnny Collins’ Inmates With Talent, a documentary set within a US prison talent show, featuring Ice-T. 

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