The African Film Festival, Inc. is proud to present the 30th edition of the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF). Celebrating the ongoing evolution of artistic liberation of the African world view, the 30th anniversary festival stands as a tribute to the fearless, distinct experimentation of filmmakers from Africa and its diaspora. Launched in 1993, the NYAFF is one of the first film festivals in the United States to reflect on the myriad ways African and diaspora filmmakers have used the moving image to tell their own complex and nuanced stories.

Presented under the banner, Freeforms, the 30th NYAFF invites us to journey through a landscape of cinematic possibilities, where creativity knows no limits and boundaries are mere suggestions. Each iteration of the festival over the years has been a collective witnessing of the multifarious ways African filmmakers have added to and reformed popular cinema and traditional storytelling conventions, whether as a means to preserve oral traditions or to give new forms to our everyday ruminations, our beauty, struggles and achievements.

For this year’s celebratory edition, the festival presents more than 50 films from over 25 countries by burgeoning and established filmmakers. Rich in their technical range, this year’s films transport us across the continent’s contemporary collective and personal reflections on social identity, land and migration, gender and politics and cultural heritage. 

“The New York African Film Festival was founded to counteract the voice-over, where Africans were being spoken for over grim images, and to provide a place where the seventh art could become a weapon for us to reclaim our voices, to reappropriate our images, and to add layers to the narrative. In each frame presented by the festival over three decades, we have found our connection with each other and our footing in other people’s spaces, while presenting myriad stories about all corners of the African diaspora and the human experience itself.”

— Mahen Bonetti, Founder and Executive Director

The 30th New York African Film Festival was organized by Mahen Bonetti, Founder and Executive Director, African Film Festival, Inc., with Dara Ojugbele, Farima Kone Kito, Tisa Chigaga, Hawa Bangoura, Zamzam Dirieh Ali, Francoise Bouffault, and Jacki Fischer in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center, Florence Almozini, Senior Director of Programming, Erin Delaney, Manager, Operations & Productions, Dan Sullivan, Programmer, Devika Girish, Co-Deputy Editor, Film Comment, Jeff Delauter, Senior Director, Theater Operations; Jesse Trussel, Senior Programmer, BAM Film; Allason Leitz, Theater Manager, and Programmer, and Emily Apter, Co-Director of Programming, Maysles Documentary Center.

Thanks are due to the AFF Board of Directors, Luca Bonetti, Belynda Hardin, Zainab Aliyu, Joan Baffour, Alonzo Speight, Shirine Gill, Malika Lee Whitney, Cheryl Duncan & Company Inc. Public Relations, Kojo Associates, and AFF’s volunteer team.