Africadelic2026: The Rising Dawn (NL Premiere) + Beach Inna Bondage (NL Preview)

Join us on Friday, November 6, at 18.30 in Ventilator Cinema in Amsterdam for the exclusive Dutch premiere of The Rising Dawn (2026), the first feature-length documentary surf film from Ivory Coast! In addition, we will be screening the short documentary Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica's Coastline (2026) as supporting film.

Title: The Rising Dawn
Director: Nadi Saddy and Nuits Balnéaires
Country: Ivory Coast
Year: 2026
Length: 60'
Extra: Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica's Coastline (2026, 30', dir. Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer)

About The Rising Dawn

In a region where ocean deities are venerated and feared, Souleymane Sidibé is pioneering a new era for surfing in Ivory Coast. One of the country’s most talented surfers, Souleymane is helping to shape an emerging surf culture while inspiring a new generation to overcome inequality and cultural barriers and discover the transformative power of the ocean. The Rising Dawn follows Souleymane on a fascinating journey along the Ivorian coast, uncovering untamed waves, ethereal landscapes and the vibrant communities at the heart of the country’s growing surf movement. As Souleymane pushes the limits of the sport in Ivory Coast, the film explores the tensions that arise as a traditionally conservative society encounters a sport with its own complex and contested history. Poetic and powerful, The Rising Dawn explores colonial legacies, cultural traditions, inequality and youth empowerment through the lens of surfing, while celebrating the people who are redefining what surf culture can mean in contemporary Africa. Above all, it is an African surf story told through the voices and experiences of the surfers who live there.

About Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica's Coastline

Beach Inna Bondage: The Fight for Jamaica's Coastline (2026) is a new documentary by Dutch filmmaking duo Emiel Martens and Elsie Vermeer in collaboration with JaBBEM and Keznamdi exploring the growing struggle for beach access in Jamaica. Since the 1950s, public access to the island’s beaches has steadily declined, leaving less than one percent of the coastline publicly accessible for Jamaicans. Over the decades, most of Jamaica’s beaches have been captured by private and tourist interests, and particularly since the 2000s large-scale hotel developments have limited beach access for Jamaicans. This film follows the grassroots movement resisting the privatization of Jamaican beaches by zooming in on three frontline struggles: Bob Marley Beach near Kingston, the Blue Lagoon in the parish of Portland, and Mammee Bay Beach on the island’s North Coast. The interviewees, all Jamaicans, reveal how the 1956 Beach Control Act, which is still in effect today, vests ownership of the foreshore in the Jamaican state (and actually the British Crown) and traces how this colonial-era law, combined with the island’s all-inclusive tourism model, has displaced communities, disrupted livelihoods, and degraded environments. Interwoven with archival footage, news clips, and recordings of protest rallies and court cases, the interviewees situate today’s beach access struggles within Jamaica’s troubled history of land ownership following emancipation and independence. They argue that the island’s tourism industry replicates plantation logic by monopolizing land, concentrating wealth, exporting profits, and, ultimately, marginalizing the people. Beach Inna Bondage shows that beach access, which is not only an issue in Jamaica but across the Caribbean and beyond, is an urgent matter of historical, economic, social, cultural and environmental justice, raising the question of who the so-called 'tropical paradise' of sun, sand, and sea truly serves, and at what cost...

About Africadelic

Africadelic is an Amsterdam-based non-profit organization and platform committed to the programming and promotion of African and African diasporic cultural creativity, diversity and activism in the Netherlands and beyond. The annual Africadelic Festival is an ode to the African continent and its worldwide diaspora, celebrating the cultural richness and profound influence of Afrodescendants, people of African descent, on global culture and society. Taking place from May 20–27, 2026, this year’s edition once again featured a vibrant week of events. Beyond the annual festival, Africadelic presents many events throughout the year, including this screening of The Rising Dawn. For more information, visit www.africadelic.com.