The 2012 New York African Film Festival, titled “21st Century: The Homecoming”, is a two-month multi-venue event in New York City exploring ideas of home and homeland through films and their protagonists. A variety of films will be presented alongside programs aimed at a broader exploration of the festival’s themes, including panel discussions, Q&A with the filmmakers, art exhibitions, professional development workshops, and presentations for K-12 and university students.

As has been the tradition since the founding of the NYAFF, we will present the best in contemporary and classic African cinema, challenging audience preconceptions, erasing distinctions between popular and high art, and emphasizing the importance of neglected genres such as melodrama, comedy and documentary. This is a populist cinema, one that defies the stereotype of African film made only for export or festival audiences.

We will pay homage to South Africa’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the African National Congress with dance and musical performances from that country as well as a broad offering of its films, including such documentaries as The Creators and Stocktown X: South Africa, which show its artistic vitality, and feature films like Man on Ground, by Akin Omotoso and How to Steal 2 Million, by Charlie Vundla, which adopt the techniques of the thriller and film noir to examine its dark underside. Africa’s other cinematic powerhouse, Nollywood, will be represented by award-winning director Tunde Kelani’s Maami, a sweeping chronicle of witchcraft, melodrama, love, and violence.

This festival will also honor the 50th anniversary of the independence of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Algeria and Jamaica, further exploring themes of liberation and independence through attention to the role of artists as activists, to the unsung heroes and untold tales of African liberation, and to the concepts of literal and figurative homecoming in the 21st century by Africans in and of the Diaspora. Mama Africa, an unforgettable portrait of artist and activist Miriam Makeba by Mika Kaurismaki, will open the festival, and Outside the Law, by Rachid Bouchareb, an epic story of three brothers fighting for Algeria’s liberation, will bring it to a close. In between, we will see a pair of remarkable documentaries: Stevan Riley’s Fire in Babylon and Clemente Bicocchi’s Black Africa White Marble, which recover two unique symbols of the fight for liberation: the gifted West Indies cricket team and the 19th Century European explorer Pietro di Brazza.

The 19st New York African Film Festival was organized by Richard Peña, Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center, and Mahen Bonetti, Founder and Executive Director, African Film Festival, Inc. with Toccarra Thomas, Hellura Lyle, Alonzo Speight, and Muriel Placet-Kouassi.

Thanks are due to the AFF Board of Directors, Jane Aiello, Joan Baffour, Luca Bonetti, Francoise Bouffault, Rumbi Bwerinofa, Herve Deswattenne, Mamadou Diouf, Gabriele Donati, Jacki Fischer, Jana Haimsohn, Sean Jacobs, Lisa Kim, Beatriz Leal, Ulli Maier, Alexander Markov, Belynda M’Baye, Prerana Reddy, Morgan Seag, Mohammed Sillah , Cheryl Duncan & Company Inc. Public Relations, Kojo Associates and AFF’s volunteer team.