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    New York, NY (March 31, 2026) — Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) and African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) announce the lineup at FLC for the 33rd edition of the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF), showcasing African and Diaspora filmmakers’ unique storytelling through the moving image since 1993. NYAFF will spotlight 14 contemporary and classic feature films and 25 short films, screening at FLC from May 6 through May 12, with the festival continuing at other esteemed New York City cultural venues throughout the month of May. Many filmmakers will be in attendance for post-screening Q&As.

    Through this year’s theme, “As the Stars Sow the Earth,” the festival celebrates cosmic agents that have sown memory, will, and possibility into Africa and its Diasporas, foregrounding Africa’s long-exploited natural resources while tracing a lineage of leaders and artists who imagine alternative relationships to the Earth. This cosmology resonates with the global rise of independent filmmaking, as directors working from historically underrepresented and underfunded regions use the moving image to reckon with the afterlives of colonialism while sustaining transnational and ecological connections. The 33rd New York African Film Festival affirms that Africa and its Diasporas, as a mobile and resilient geography, people, and idea, have been granted the wisdom, memory, and invention necessary to build sovereign futures.

    “Across this year’s selection, filmmakers are reimagining the landscapes we inherit—drawing from ancestral wisdom not as something to leave behind, but as a source of renewal and possibility,” said Mahen Bonetti, founder and Executive Director of AFF. “Many of the directors, including a strong group making their first features, open new ways of seeing, rooted in land, spirit, and the worlds we share. In these films, what sustains us becomes a kind of wealth, guiding how we envision and shape futures on our own terms. Together, they offer glimpses of brighter horizons, reminding us that even in difficult times, life takes root in surprising and extraordinary ways.”

    The Opening Night selection is the New York premiere of Erige Sehiri’s Promised Sky, a bittersweet drama following an Ivorian pastor living in Tunisia, forming a makeshift family with the young women who find refuge in her home. The film opened the 2025 Cannes Un Certain Regard program and features a stellar cast, including César Award nominee Aïssa Maïga and Laetitia Ky. The Centerpiece film, from executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama and Oscar-winning director Ben Proudfoot, is The Eyes of Ghana, following 93-year-old photographer Chris Hesse on a quest to rescue an archive of films that could rewrite history. Closing Night will feature Shorts Program 3: The Art of Protection, including Shiloh Tumo Washington’s Bailey’s Blues; Justice Rutikara’s Ibuka, Justice; Catherine E. McKinley, Mamadou Tapily, and Marc Lesser’s Keïta La; Aminata Drynie Bockarie’s Where the Water Meets Us; Nimco Sheikhaden’s Exodus; Klein Ongaki’s The Land Smiles Back; Abdelkrim Boughoud’s Eauquation – Water Distribution at Douiret-Sbâa; and Marwa Eltahir’s 99 Names: My Liberation Is Tied to Yours.

    Additional highlights include the world premiere of Gabriel Souleyka’s The Soul of Africa, a captivating documentary exploring the origins, resilience, and contemporary relevance of African spiritual traditions; and the North American premiere of Hamed Mobasser and Yohane Dean Lengol’s Rumba Royale, following a young photographer (Congolese rumba star Fally Ipupa) who becomes entangled in the fragile social world of a legendary rumba nightclub in 1959 Léopoldville. Two classic film restorations will have their U.S. premieres: Caméra arabe, Férid Boughedir’s passionate 1987 documentary linking politically engaged Arab cinema from the 1960s onward to major historical events, restored in 4K and followed by a Q&A with Boughedir himself; and a 4K restoration of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra’s 1981 film En résidence surveillée, a biting political satire set in a fictional African state where corruption, media control, and forced exile reveal the human cost of unchecked power. The festival also features the U.S. premiere of Lace Relations by Anette Baldauf, Chioma Onyenwe, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, and Katharina Weingartner, a documentary uncovering the history of the textile trade that has intertwined Nigeria and Austria for centuries. Idris Elba’s first short film, Dust to Dreams, about a Lagos nightclub pulsating with aspiring musicians but masking a family drama, is also included in the lineup.

    Férid Boughedir will also participate in an extended conversation following the screening of his newly restored 1983 film Caméra d’Afrique, inviting audiences into a thoughtful dialogue with one of the defining voices in the history of African cinema. Special programs also include a digital exhibition in the Amphitheater at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center featuring select moments from NYAFF’s archival collection, including never-before-seen interviews, discussions, and photographs with a host of pioneering figures and friends of the festival such as Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye, Bill Greaves, Sarah Maldoror, Harry Belafonte, Rita Marley, Danny Glover, Wole Soyinka, Miriam Makeba, and Ossie Davis. Photographs will be displayed alongside the digital exhibition, documenting the communities brought together through NYAFF’s programs, parties, and events over the years.

    Tickets go on sale Wednesday, April 1, at 2pm ET, with an early access period for FLC Members starting Wednesday, April 1, at noon. Ticket prices are $19 for the general public; $16 for students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; and $14 for FLC Members. See more and save with a 3+ Film Package ($17 for general public; $14 for students, seniors (62+), and persons with disabilities; and $12 for FLC Members), the $89 All-Access Pass, or the $65 Student All-Access Pass. Contact info@africanfilmny.org for information about attending the Opening Night Party.

    The festival kicks off on May 1 at 6:30pm at the Africa Center with a Town Hall forum featuring multidisciplinary artists and storytellers who will be exploring and expanding on the festival’s theme. It continues at Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem from May 15 to 17 and at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) under the name FilmAfrica from May 22 to May 28 during DanceAfrica, and culminates with an outdoor screening at St. Nicholas Park on May 30.

    The programs of AFF are made possible by the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bradley Family Foundation, Color Congress, NYC & Company, The New York Community Trust, French Cultural Services, Manhattan Portage, Organization de la Francophonie, Essentia Water, Ministre du Tourisme République démocratique du Congo, ZOPMEDIA, South African Consulate General, National Film and Video Foundation, and Motion Picture Enterprises.

    FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
    The Opening Night premiere of Promised Sky on May 6 will take place at

    the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th Street).

    All other films will screen at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (144 W. 65th Street).

    Opening Night

    Promised Sky

    Erige Sehiri, 2025, France/Tunisia/Qatar, 95m

    French and Arabic with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    Marie, an Ivorian pastor and former journalist, has lived in Tunisia for 10 years. Her home becomes a refuge for Naney, a young mother seeking a better future, and Jolie, a student carrying her family’s expectations. With the arrival of Kenza, a little orphan girl and shipwreck survivor, Marie takes on the role of caregiver. As the four women grow closer, they navigate poverty, displacement, and the fragile bonds of a makeshift family in a tense social climate. Selected as the opening film in the 2025 Cannes Un Certain Regard program, the latest drama from director Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees) features a stellar cast including César Award-nominated Aïssa Maïga (Bamako, Above Water, Toussaint Louverture) and Laetitia Ky.

    Wednesday, May 6 at 6:30pm – Q&A with Aïssa Maïga and Laetitia Ky

    Thursday, May 7 at 2:00pm

    Centerpiece

    The Eyes of Ghana

    Ben Proudfoot, U.S./Ghana/U.K., 2025, 90m

    English, Twi, and Ga with English subtitles

    Documentarian Chris Hesse captured the birth of African independence in the 1950s and ’60s on film as personal cinematographer to Kwame Nkrumah, the iconic African leader who helped lead Ghana to independence and served as its first president. Now 93 years old and facing impending blindness, Hesse and passionate young Ghanaian filmmaker Anita Afonu race against time to rescue and repatriate a secret trove of more than 1,000 films that were long thought to be destroyed by Nkrumah. Never seen by the public, these films may not only rewrite Ghanaian and African history, but world history itself. Ben Proudfoot, a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Short Film, crafts their inspirational  journey into a stunning feature documentary. The Eyes of Ghana was executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama and won the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

    Friday, May 8 at 5:45pm – Q&A with Ben Proudfoot

    Closing Night

    Shorts Program 3: The Art of Protection

    109m

    This program includes Shiloh Tumo Washington’s Bailey’s Blues; Justice Rutikara’s Ibuka, Justice; Catherine E. McKinley, Mamadou Tapily, and Marc Lesser’s Keïta La; Aminata Drynie Bockarie’s Where the Water Meets Us; Nimco Sheikhaden’s Exodus; Klein Ongaki’s The Land Smiles Back; Abdelkrim Boughoud’s Eauquation – Water Distribution at Douiret-Sbâa; and Marwa Eltahir’s 99 Names: My Liberation Is Tied to Yours.

    Tuesday, May 12 at 8:00pm

    Bailey’s Blues

    Shiloh Tumo Washington, 2025, U.S., 11m

    English and French with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    In 1960s France, a Chicago-born jazz bassist is pulled into an impromptu filmed interview during a festival. What begins as a routine exchange quickly shifts into a tense confrontation between subject and camera. Bailey’s Blues unfolds as an unfinished document, where jazz becomes a conduit for deeper truths about resistance and identity.

    Ibuka, Justice

    Justice Rutikara, 2024, Canada, 23m

    French and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Valentine and Jean-Claude risk everything to flee with their newborn, a journey captured in this poetic animated odyssey.

    Keïta La

    Catherine McKinley, Mamadou Tapily, Marc Lesser, 2025, U.S./Mali, 10m

    English, French, and Bambara with English subtitles

    Named after photographer Seydou Keïta’s family compound established in Bamako-Coura, Mali, in the early 1900s, on the edge of which stood his famous studio, Keïta La offers a glimpse into the world of Keïta’s artistry and his family’s efforts to steward and preserve his legacy.

    Where the Water Meets Us

    Aminata Drynie Bockarie, 2026, Sierra Leone, 10m

    English, Mende, Krio, and Shebro with English subtitles

    World Premiere

    The film shines a light on the long and rich history of Bonthe, a town on Sherbro Island, and the island’s immense contribution to the formation of Sierra Leone. Beyond celebrating its heritage, the film addresses the ongoing challenges threatening the island’s survival—climate change, mangrove loss, and rising sea levels—while highlighting a new generation rising to find solutions and safeguard its future.

    Exodus

    Nimco Sheikhaden, 2025, U.S., 35m

    English and Spanish with English subtitles

    Exodus is a portrait of two women granted release after decades of incarceration, navigating the uncharted terrain of freedom and facing both its promise and its barriers in their efforts to build a dignified life.

    The Land Smiles Back

    Klein Ongaki, 2025, Kenya, 4m

    Samburu with English subtitles

    North American Premiere

    For generations, the Samburu people and their livestock have had a deep connection with water, depending on the rains for their survival. The Land Smiles Back is the story of the Samburu community in Westgate Conservancy, who made the land “smile” again by returning to ancient hydrotechnology.

    Eauquation – Water Distribution at Douiret-Sbâa

    Abdelkrim Boughoud, 2023, Morocco, 5m

    Darija and Amazigh with English subtitles

    This documentary explores the ancient water system of Douiret-Sbâa, Morocco, a remarkable network fed by a local spring that has sustained the community for centuries. Highlighting the ingenuity of traditional hydro-technologies, the film examines how these systems continue to shape life in arid lands today.

    99 Names: My Liberation Is Tied to Yours

    Marwa Eltahir, 2025, Sudan/U.S., 11m

    English and Arabic with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    99 Names is an immersive, audio-visual story that combines sonic rituals of oral storytelling, recitation of the Quran, and calling on the 99 names of Allah to venerate the Divine. The film asks audiences to sit with the grief of colonization within the Afro-Arab diaspora and invites them to imagine how we can collectively hold, transmute and release this weight

    Afrotōpia

    David Mboussou, 2025, Gabon, 128m

    French with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    Ezekiel, a 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker, lives in the heart of the Congo Basin under the authority of his father, Maurice, a powerful businessman who opposes his artistic ambitions. When Ezekiel is forced to join the family logging business, he discovers that Maurice plans to exploit a sacred forest, the last refuge of an indigenous community. As he uncovers a buried colonial-era family secret, Ezekiel must choose between loyalty, personal freedom, and the fate of his people. Blending tradition and modernity to portray contemporary, cross-cultural Africa, Franco-Gabonese filmmaker David Mboussou’s “ecological manifesto” embraces the healing of historical wounds and explores the stigmatization of African cultures, the sacred link between people, nature, and spirit, and the resilience that shapes our future.

    Saturday, May 9 at 2:45pm – Q&A with David Mboussou

    Barni

    Mohammed Sheikh, 2024, Somalia/Djibouti/U.S., 90m

    Somali with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    In a quaint Somali village where herding families coexist, an event disrupts the peace and 9-year-old Barni gets lost after a celebratory wedding, leaving the community in distress. Despite the exhaustive efforts of the village, Barni can’t be found, leaving her older sister Amina and her friends Hirsi and Geedi to set out on a journey to the city to locate her. Mohammed Sheikh’s directorial debut feature looks at the daily life and struggles faced by Somali communities, and its power lies in transforming a tragic disappearance into a celebration of courage, loyalty, and humanity.

    Saturday, May 9 at 6:00pm – Q&A with Mohammed Sheikh

    4K Restoration

    Cméra arabe

    Férid Boughedir, 1987, Tunisia/France, 65m

    Arabic and French with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere of Restoration

    Férid Boughedir’s Caméra arabe is a fast-paced documentary exploring the rise of politically engaged cinema in North Africa and the Middle East from the 1960s onward. Through film clips and filmmaker testimonies, it links this cinematic movement to major historical events like the Six-Day War and the Lebanon War, highlighting how directors grappled with questions of identity and expression. Featuring key voices such as Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina and Youssef Chahine, the film stands as a passionate tribute to a bold, independent wave of Arab cinema. Writing in Variety upon its 1987 release, Anthony Yung says “Chahine’s intelligent, anguished battle to describe Arabs’ shaken sense of their own identity in a world rocked by dramatic political events rather sums up the film.”

    Tuesday, May 12 at 5:45pm – Q&A with Férid Boughedir

    2K Restoration

    Caméra d’Afrique

    Férid Boughedir, 1983, Tunisia/France, 95m

    English and French with English subtitles

    Seventy years after the invention of cinema—and after several decades of colonial cinema using Africa as an exotic setting, often denying humanity and dignity to its people—newly independent Africans finally took hold of the movie camera. Undeterred by the lack of means and infrastructure, they showed African reality in its variegated forms, seen at last through African eyes. Using extracts from significant films, interviews with filmmakers, and rare vintage footage, Caméra d’Afrique recalls the first 20 years of the new auteur cinema of sub-Saharan Africa, which bears witness to an indefatigable—and still-enduring—drive for self-expression. As a critic, historian, and filmmaker, director Férid Boughedir has played a central role in championing early African cinema, shaping how it has been preserved, studied, and understood across generations. 2K restoration from the original 16mm print done by the Laboratory of the CNC with the support of L’Institut français.

    Followed by an extended conversation with Férid Boughedir and an audience-led Q&A, offering a rare opportunity to engage more deeply with Boughedir’s practice and legacy. As a key figure in this year’s festival, and as NYAFF’s honored pioneer, the expanded format creates space for reflection across his body of work. It highlights the enduring connections between sub-Saharan and North African cinemas, and revisits ongoing questions of authorship, memory, and self-representation that continue to resonate today. The conversation invites audiences into a thoughtful and sustained dialogue with one of the defining voices in the history of African cinema.

    Saturday, May 9 at 12:00pm – Extended conversation with Férid Boughedir

    4K Restoration

    En résidence surveillée

    Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, 1981, Senegal, 102m

    French and Wolof with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere of Restoration

    The only feature-length fiction film by pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, whose seminal work Afrique sur Seine (1955) was the first film made entirely by Africans, En résidence surveillée unfolds in a fictional African state caught in the grip of political and economic turmoil. Through satire and keen observation, the film follows a society grappling with corrupt leadership, media controlled by the authorities, and the forced exile of political figures. A visionary filmmaker and incisive analyst of post-independence Africa, Vieyra captures the complexities and contradictions of governance and public life with striking clarity. Decades after its release, his children championed the restoration of this extraordinary political satire, bringing renewed attention to both the film and their father’s enduring legacy.

    Preceded by:

    N’Dobine

    Ahmad Cissé, 2026, U.S., 6m

    World Premiere

    N’Dobine follows a traveler navigating his heart and past, guided by ritual and spirituality, as an unforeseen obstacle tests his journey of offering.

    and

    Vieyra, The Innovative Pioneer

    Stéphane Soumanou Vieyra, 2025, France, 9m

    French with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere

    Vieyra, The Innovative Pioneer imagines a virtual encounter between pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and his grandsons during a visit to a museum retracing his life, highlighting his childhood, his encounters, his studies, and his work.

    Monday, May 11 at 8:15pm – Q&A with Ahmad Cissé and Stéphane Soumanou Vieyra

    The Heart Is a Muscle

    Imran Hamdulay, 2025, South Africa/Saudi Arabia, 86m

    English and Afrikaans with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    At his son’s fifth birthday barbecue, Ryan panics when the boy suddenly goes missing. His violent reaction to the scare sets off a chain of events that exposes long-buried secrets from his past. As tensions rise among friends and old wounds resurface, Ryan is forced to confront who he has been and who he wants to become. A redemption story deeply infused with hip-hop culture, Imran Hamdulay’s debut feature won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at 2025 Berlinale Panorama and was South Africa’s official entry for Best International Feature at the 2026 Academy Awards. Hamdulay has been featured on CNN’s Inside Africa as one of “Africa’s directors to watch.”

    Monday, May 11 at 5:45pm – Q&A with Imran Hamdulay

    Lace Relations

    Anette Baldauf, Chioma Onyenwe, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, Katharina Weingartner, 2025, Nigeria/Austria, 88m

    German, English, and Yoruba with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere

    Lace Relations uncovers the hidden histories of a global trade that connected Vorarlberg, Austria, to the bustling markets of Lagos, Nigeria. Through the intertwined lives of an Austrian lace exporter and a Nigerian market queen, this colorful, expansive documentary reveals how colonial legacies shaped a multimillion-dollar industry—enriching Europe while contributing to the collapse of West Africa’s indigenous textile economy. Combining on-location encounters and a powerful sociodramatic method, the film shifts the lens: Who tells the story? Who profits? Who remembers? Directed collectively by filmmakers from Austria and Nigeria, Lace Relations is not simply about textiles. It is about colonialism, memory, gendered resistance—and the patterns of power that continue to shape our world.

    Sunday, May 10 at 3:30pm – Q&A with Katharina Weingartner and film subject Ireti Bakare-Yusuf

    My Father and Qaddafi

    Jihan, 2025, U.S./Libya, 88m

    Arabic, English, and French with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    When director Jihan was 6, her father, the Libyan opposition leader Mansur Rashid Kikhia, disappeared. Her first documentary, My Father and Qaddafi—which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Jury Prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival—takes us on a raw and reflective journey as she sets out to piece together the life of a father she barely remembers. She retraces the 19-year journey of her mother, a strong-willed Syrian-American artist, encounters family members and her father’s peers, and revisits historical archive footage, along the way discovering the troubled history and politics of Libya. What begins as a mystery brings her closer to her father and her Libyan identity. “Making this documentary helps me understand the importance of a father figure and the impact of losing a father on a family, a community, and even a country,” Jihan has said.

    Thursday, May 7 at 5:30pm – Q&A with Jihan

    Rumba Royale

    Hamed Mobasser, Yohane Dean Lengol, 2025, Democratic Republic of the Congo/Belgium/France/U.S., 97m

    French with English subtitles

    North American Premiere

    In 1959 Léopoldville, the legendary Rumba Royale nightclub pulses with the rhythms of Congolese rumba in the final days of Belgian colonial rule. Daniel, a young photographer, captures the life of the club through his lens and grows close to Olive, an ambitious waitress with dreams beyond the dance floor. As personal ambitions, colonial hierarchies, and the city’s shifting political climate collide, the fragile world surrounding the nightclub begins to unravel. Congolese star Fally Ipupa, known as the “Prince of Rumba,” makes his big-screen debut in Hamed Mobasser and Yohane Dean Lengol’s captivating historical thriller. 

    Sunday, May 10 at 6:00pm – Q&A with Hamed Mobasser and Yohane Dean Lengol

    So Long a Letter

    Angèle Diabang, 2025, Senegal, 105m

    French and Wolof with English subtitles

    Ramatoulaye,a 50-year-old mother of seven children and headmistress of a primary school in Dakar, is shocked when her husband of 30 years decides to take a second wife—a 20-year-old. In a quest for freedom that leads to rebellion, she must find a balance between the Western ways she values and the traditions she respects. An adaptation of the seminal 1979 novel by Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ, widely regarded as one of the first feminist literary works of modern Africa, Angèle Diabang’s feature debut illustrates very different views of women’s roles in contemporary African society.

    Friday, May 8 at 8:30pm – Q&A with Angèle Diabang

    The Soul of Africa

    Gabriel Souleyka, 2025, France/U.S./Togo, 67m

    English and French with English subtitles

    World Premiere

    The first feature documentary by author and African historian Gabriel Souleyka delves into the heart of African spirituality, exploring its deep roots and its evolution across centuries, exploring a fundamental question: What were the spiritual beliefs and practices of African peoples before the arrival of Christianity and Islam on the Continent? It features captivating images and moving testimonies at the 10th Festival of Black Divinities, held in Togo in 2025, a cultural and spiritual event that celebrates ancestral traditions and African deities—its rituals, dances, songs, and ceremonies serve as a thread to explore the wealth of pre-colonial African spiritualities. Through expert interviews, immersive festival sequences, and philosophical reflections, The Soul of Africa highlights the resilience of spiritual tradition despite outside influences and examines its place in contemporary Africa, offering a vibrant journey into the heart of a continent where the sacred and the profane blend harmoniously. It is both a tribute to ancestral spiritualities and an invitation to discover Africa’s cultural foundations while questioning their future in a rapidly changing world.

    Sunday, May 10 at 12:45pm

    When Nigeria Happens

    Ema Edosio Deelen, 2025, Belgium/Nigeria, 119m

    English and Pidgin with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    A bold, visually striking contemporary dance drama that had its world premiere at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival, When Nigeria Happens is a gripping story that follows a group of misfit dancers—Fagbo, Pokko, Lighter, Movement, Colos, and Poppy—who live for their art while defying societal expectations. Their tight-knit world is upended when Fagbo’s mother falls critically ill, leaving him in a desperate search for funds. As pressures mount, their bond and dreams are tested like never before. Amid increasing sacrifices, they must confront what it truly means to fight for love, identity, and a future in Nigeria.

    Preceded by:

    Akosua

    Christian Saint, Mélissa Rouillé, 2023, Ghana, 7m

    Twi with English subtitles

    North American Premiere

    In Kumasi, five lifelong friends known as “the Aunties” gather for a day of shared rituals shaped by decades of sisterhood. Through moments of dance, laughter, and prayer, their individual stories come together as one. Akosua is an intimate portrait of friendship, tradition, and the strength found in community.

    Saturday, May 9 at 8:30pm – Q&A with Ema Edosio Deelen

    New York African Film Festival Shorts Programs

    Shorts Program 1: Crossings

    90m

    The program includes Tomisin Sarumi’s Departing, Johanna Makabi’s Happy Meal,Herrana Addisu’s The River, Eseoghene Obrimah’s Heartbreaks and Ocean Waves, Agathe Moubembé’s Faux Lion, Stephanie Adusei-Boateng’s Knotless, Rashida Seriki’s Leaving Ikorodu in 1999, and Chiemeka Offor’s Nwanne M Nwaanyi.

    Thursday, May 7 at 8:30pm

    Friday, May 8 at 3:00pm

    Departing

    Tomisin Sarumi, 2025, U.S., 2m

    Three individuals enter a temple to summon the Yoruba Orishas through ritual, music, and dance. As colonial influence reshapes spiritual practice, these traditions begin to shift. Over time, the rituals are altered and Westernized, losing their original form. What once connected them to the divine begins to fade.

    Happy Meal

    Johanna Makabi, 2025, France, 18m

    French with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere

    Thirtysomething Dom is undergoing therapy. As the Christmas holidays come to an end, he is granted, for the first time in years, the right to spend a day alone with his daughters. A precious day… that he dreads seeing come to an end.

    The River

    Herrana Addisu, 2024, Ethiopia/U.S., 18m

    Amharic with English subtitles

    The River is a film honoring Ethiopian culture and women’s experiences, inspired by the director’s childhood home in Kebena. Through the story of the Kebena River, it explores systemic barriers women face around forced marriage, education, and water access, highlighting the vital role of water in daily life.

    Heartbreaks & Ocean Waves

    Eseoghene Obrimah, 2025, Nigeria, 4m

    New York Premiere

    Heartbreaks & Ocean Waves is an experimental short film that follows a young woman in the aftermath of emotional loss as she journeys toward rediscovery. Through the symbolic interplay of hair plaiting, dance, and spiritual reflection, the film explores the tension and harmony between the head, heart, and spirit. With a distinctive three-frame visual style and sound design inspired by ocean tides, the film invites viewers into an intimate, sensory meditation on healing, womanhood, and becoming.

    Faux Lion

    Agathe Moubembé, 2025, France/Senegal, 9m

    Wolof with English subtitles

    When he sneaks into a Simb—a festival where men dressed as lions dance to the rhythm of the sabars—Assane, a quiet young boy, sets in motion more than a simple punishment. What he experiences sends him on an initiatory journey through fear, myth, and ancestral transmission.

    Knotless

    Stephanie Adusei-Boateng, 2025, Ghana/U.S./U.K., 18m

    English and Twi with English subtitles

    World Premiere

    When a Ghanaian-American woman relocates to Ghana in search of community and belonging, a friend’s wedding seems like the perfect opportunity to build connection, until a series of unsettling encounters forces her to confront the country’s unspoken beliefs and practices.

    Leaving Ikorodu in 1999

    Rashida Seriki, 2024, U.K./Nigeria, 18m

    English and Yoruba with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    In Ikorodu, young Momo spends her final day at home, playing football and savoring familiar streets with her aunty Fade and Fade’s fiancé, Mahmoud. During the road trip to the airport, Fade questions whether her niece’s departure from Nigeria is truly for the best. Small detours and tender moments reveal the weight of leaving, the pull of home, and the bonds that hold family together.

    Nwanne M Nwaanyi

    Chiemeka Offor, 2026, Nigeria, 3m

    Igbo with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere

    Nwanne M Nwaanyi is a visual journey tracing the intangible roots two sisters share, tethered by something far stronger than blood and deeper than soil. They meet again at the first place they ever called home, the womb, to cry out the songs of their mother’s mother, a tune known only to an Igbo woman.

    Shorts Program 2: Go Back and Get It

    112m

    This program includes Femi Bajulaye and Emmanuel Oluwaseyi Bajulaye’s Ekun Omi, Josh Bridge’s Caleb, Judy Kibinge’s Goat, Karanja Ng’endo’s Of Kimani, Cecilia Zoppelletto’s Clichés, andIdris Elba’s Dust to Dreams.

    Sunday, May 10 at 8:45pm

    Tuesday, May 12 at 2:00pm

    Ekun Omi

    Femi Bajulaye, Emmanuel Oluwaseyi Bajulaye, 2024, Nigeria/U.K., 24m

    English and Yoruba with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    Agboogun confronts sorrow, heartbreak, and existential neurosis, aided by two apparitions, as he and the intertwined lives of Lagbaja and Omotola grapple with migration and the sacrifices that shape identity.

    Caleb

    Josh Bridge, 2025, U.K., 10m

    English and Yoruba with English subtitles

    World Premiere

    A grandson attempts to connect with his Nigerian grandmother as the woman he once knew quietly begins to fade.

    Goat

    Judy Kibinge, 2025, Kenya, 29m

    English, Swahili, and Kikuyu with English subtitles

    New York Premiere

    City lovebirds Suki and Benjamin travel to a remote goat farm, only for Suki to realize this isn’t the romantic getaway she imagined. Watched over by a towering Mugumo tree and an unusual cast of farm residents, vegetarian Suki is horrified by the brutal slaughter of a goat, triggering visions of an ancestral debt and a desperate race to escape what her bloodline owes.

    Of Kimani

    Karanja Ng’endo, 2026, Kenya, 14m

    Kikuyu with English subtitles

    World Premiere

    Now an aging couple, Wanjiru and Kimani navigate the routines of marriage amid Kimani’s early-onset dementia. A wedding outing brings unexpected closeness, reminding them of love, memory, and shared history.

    Clichés

    Cecilia Zoppelletto, 2025, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 15m

    French and Lingala with English subtitles

    U.S. Premiere

    In a Kinshasa house, a visit unfolds between two couples where everything seems in place, yet something is slightly off. At the center, Pamela navigates the expectations of love and the roles imposed on her. Fragments of a recent event begin to surface, unsettling the present.

    Dust to Dreams

    Idris Elba, 2025, Nigeria, 20m

    New York Premiere

    Dust to Dreams marks Idris Elba’s first short film, following his award-winning feature directorial debut Yardie in 2018. K.Kay’s, a Lagos nightclub pulsating with aspiring musicians, masks a family drama. Milli, the tough owner facing a terminal illness, entrusts her legacy—the club—to Bisi, her shy but talented daughter. The unexpected return of a long-lost father stirs old emotions and tensions. Could music become their path to healing? Dust to Dreams explores love, legacy, and ambition, showing how music can unite, heal, and mend even the deepest divides.


    Special Programs

    36 Years at NYAFF Digital Exhibition
    When Mahen Bonetti left her corporate career to establish African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) in 1990, she relied not on formal training but on a deep commitment and instinct for community-building. Soon, a dynamic network of filmmakers, artists, scholars, cultural workers, and industry professionals gathered to breathe life into the first African-centered film festival in the global cultural hub of New York City. Since then, the New York African Film Festival’s (NYAFF) story has been carefully documented and stored. In recent years, AFF has begun cataloguing these materials into an archival collection that includes approximately 3,000 rare film titles from more than 90 countries; an audiovisual archive with 90 magnetic tapes, 51 audiocassettes and microcassettes, and 163 optical media; more than 300 posters and hundreds of photographs; as well as extensive printed materials and festival records.

    This digital exhibition presents selected moments from NYAFF’s larger collection, featuring never-before-seen interviews, discussions, and photographs with a host of pioneering figures and friends of the festival such as Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye, Bill Greaves, Sarah Maldoror, Harry Belafonte, Rita Marley, Danny Glover, Wole Soyinka, Miriam Makeba, and Ossie Davis, amongst others. Presented alongside the exhibition are photographs documenting the communities brought together through NYAFF’s programs, parties, and events over the years. Key Archival Collection Funder: Ford Foundation, JustFilms; Archivist: Kirk Mudle; Exhibition Curator: Taylor Dews.
    Select Hours on Thursday, May 7–Tuesday, May 12 – Amphitheater at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center


    FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
    Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) is a nonprofit organization that celebrates cinema as an essential art form and fosters a vibrant home for film culture to thrive. FLC presents premier film festivals, retrospectives, new releases, and restorations year-round in state-of-the-art theaters at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. FLC offers audiences the opportunity to discover works from established and emerging directors from around the world with a passionate community of film lovers at marquee events including the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films. 

    Founded in 1969, FLC is committed to preserving the excitement of the theatrical experience for all audiences, advancing high-quality film journalism through the publication of Film Comment, cultivating the next generation of film industry professionals through our FLC Academies, and enriching the lives of all who engage with our programs.

    Rolex is the Official Partner and Exclusive Timepiece of Film at Lincoln Center.

    Film at Lincoln Center receives generous, year-round support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Film at Lincoln Center. For more information, visit filmlinc.org and follow us here for updates.

    AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL, INC.
    Since 1990, African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) has bridged the divide between postcolonial Africa and the American public through the powerful medium of film and video. AFF’s unique place in the international arts community is distinguished not only by leadership in festival management, but also by a comprehensive approach to the advocacy of African film and culture. AFF established the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) in 1993 with Film at Lincoln Center. The New York African Film Festival is presented annually by the African Film Festival, Inc. and Film at Lincoln Center, in association with Brooklyn Academy of Music and Maysles Cinema. AFF also produces a series of local, national, and international programs throughout the year. More information about AFF can be found on the Web at www.africanfilmny.org. You can follow AFF at @africanfilmfest on X and Instagram.

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