African Film Festival 2018

March 8–May 6, 2018

This annual festival showcases the best of African cinema and films from the diaspora.

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  • Green White Green

  • Play the Devil

  • Marabout

  • Uprize!

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Uprize!

    Sifiso Khanyile
    South Africa, 2017
    Thursday, March 8 7 PM
    Introduction by Gillian Hart

    Uprize! revisits South Africa’s Soweto Uprising, which began as a student rebellion and became a founding moment in the history of anti-apartheid struggle. With Jamaican filmmaker Lebert Bethune’s historic 1967 film Malcolm X: Struggle for Freedom.

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  • The African Who Wanted to Fly

    Samantha Biffot
    Gabon, France, Belgium, 2016
    Sunday, March 11 7 PM

    This sweet-natured documentary showcases the remarkable life of a man who journeyed from a small Gabonese village to China to study martial arts, and eventually star in kung fu films. With Nora Chipaumire’s Afrofuturist short Afro Promo #1 (Kinglady).

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  • Mapantsula

    Oliver Schmitz, Thomas Mogotlane
    South Africa, 1988
    Sunday, March 18 4:30 PM
    Introduction by Cornelius Moore

    An apolitical small-time crook in Soweto gets swept up in political protests in this legendary 1988 film, the first anti-apartheid feature made in South Africa and a still-vital time capsule of protest, street culture, and pride.

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  • Play the Devil

    Maria Govan
    Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas, United States, 2016
    Thursday, March 22 7 PM

    Bahamian director Maria Govan, one of the Caribbean’s rising filmmakers, returns with this atmospheric noir drama on class divides, sexual repression, and identity in Trinidad.

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  • Pioneer of Nigerien Cinema: Short Films by Moustapha Alassane

    Sunday, March 25 7 PM

    Alassane’s films range from animations to ethnography-infused comedies and adaptations of African legends, all sharing a playful humor and incisive commentary on modern Africa.

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  • Green White Green

    Abba Makama
    Nigeria, 2016
    Thursday, April 19 7 PM

    Three friends join together to get through the dog days of a Lagos summer—and create a film—in this salute to the creativity and vitality of Nigerian youth, which has garnered comparisons to early Spike Lee.

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  • Africa and the Diaspora: Short Films

    Wednesday, May 2 7 PM
    Carlos Javier Ortiz in Person

    Tonight’s program mingles short African fiction films with documentary essays from the diaspora. Discover works by Alassane Sy and Mamadou Dia (Senegal), Cedric Ido (Burkina Faso), Lebert Bethune (Jamaica), and Carlos Javier Ortiz (Oakland by way of Chicago).

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  • Vaya

    Akin Omotoso
    South Africa, 2016
    Sunday, May 6 7 PM

    Three strangers from the South African hinterlands journey to bustling Johannesburg looking for success but find far more than they bargained for in this well-crafted urban noir, an Amores perros for twenty-first-century Africa.

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