33rd New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) Lineup Announced
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.
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.
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 Nimco Sheikhaden’s Exodus, Shiloh Tumo Washington’s Bailey’s Blues, Justice Rutikara’s Ibuka, Justice, Aminata Drynie Bockarie’s Bonthe, Klein Ongaki’s The Land Smiles Back, Amine Ahmidani’s Eauquation – Water Distribution at Douiret-Sbâa, Catherine E. Mckinley’s Keïta La, 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’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 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.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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