African Film Festival 2022

September 7–October 29, 2022

After two years of pandemic-related cancellations or virtual screenings, we are proud to welcome the African Film Festival back to BAMPFA. This year, open your eyes to new horizons, new heroes, and new narratives.

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  • Min alesh?

  • The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman

  • Neptune Frost

  • Sarraounia

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

Past Films

  • Nolly Babes on Nollywood: Highway to the Grave

    • Saturday, October 29 7 PM
    Teco Benson
    Nigeria, 2000

    For their Black Life presentation, Nolly Babes—sisters Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu—has selected Highway to the Grave, a film that deals with indigenous mythology, superstition, and feminine power.

    Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu and Ruth Gebreyesus in Prerecorded Conversation

  • Mrs. F

    • Sunday, October 23 7 PM
    Chris van der Vorm
    Nigeria, Netherlands, 2020

    A hard-charging theater director/activist brings her successful play on women’s empowerment into Nigeria’s largest waterside slum in this eye-opening look at exactly what it takes to make a difference. With Leonard Cortana’s short Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die, on the murder of an Afro-Brazilian councilwoman.

    Introduced by Ivy Mills

  • Min alesh?

    • Sunday, October 2 5 PM
    Amleset Muchie
    Ethiopia, 2019

    An indomitable young woman in Addis Ababa’s sprawling Merkato market finds that her running talent could lead her out of poverty in this inspiring, colorful film. Legendary runner Haile Gebrselassie cameos.

    Introduced by Ruth Gebreyesus

  • The Promises

    • Thursday, September 29 7 PM
    Hawa Aliou N’Diaye
    Mali, France, Benin, 2021

    N’Diaye explores Malian tradition, myth, and the ethereal through interviews with women who—like her—claim to be possessed by enigmatic spirits known as jinn.

  • Sarraounia

    • Thursday, September 22 7 PM
    Med Hondo
    Burkina Faso, Mauritania, France, 1986

    A young queen leads her people against a brutal French expeditionary force in 1899 Niger in Hondo’s anti-colonialist, rough-hewn epic based on the brutal true-life history of the Voulet-Chanoine Mission.

  • Women’s Stories: African Short Films

    • Sunday, September 18 5 PM

    Women of all ages and backgrounds drive the narratives of these short films, whether in Senegal, Sudan, South Africa, or London.

  • The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman

    • Thursday, September 15 7 PM
    Rosine Mbakam
    Cameroon, Belgium, 2016

    “The filmmaker reinventing how African women are portrayed in movies” (NPR), Mbakam turns the camera on her own remarkable mother and her generation in this captivating documentary.

  • Neptune Frost

    • Wednesday, September 7 7 PM
    Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams
    Rwanda, United States, 2021

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Replete with mind-altering visual and sonic imagery, this Afrofuturist mélange of music, poetry, and resistance is hypnotic and visionary in its depiction of a genderqueer community of hackers and techno poets. With Manu Luksch’s short Algo-Rhythm.