Produced in collaboration with Staten Island Arts, African Story Network and the United States Sierra Leone Association.

Special programming

Performance: DJ Daty + Drummers and Skype discussion with filmmaker Emma Christopher

About the Film

Josefa held her village’s songs and dances in her heart. Captured in Africa, she treasured them as she was loaded into the gruesome hold of a slave ship and then sold as a beast of burden in Cuba. Toiling on a plantation, she taught the songs and dances to her children and grandchildren, words and rhythms that lost their original meanings but still resonated with the cadences of their stolen identity. Now, 160 years later, might those same songs and dances enable her descendants to make their way home? They Are We tells the story of how Josefa’s descendants have kept some of their origins alive. It shows the incredible search for their African roots and then follows the two halves of the family as they try to overcome their problems—the Africans’ extreme poverty and the Cubans’ lack of freedom to travel—to meet again. It is a story of surviving the worst of human experience and how family ties can outlast just about anything.
About Emma Christopher

About our Summer Series

During this annual series, AFF presents free programs throughout NYC, in public venues and city parks, including screenings of African cinema and family-friendly events such as the annual Family Day Celebration on Governors Island. Learn More