African Film Festival 2025

March 6–April 6, 2025

BAMPFA’s ongoing collaboration with the African Film Festival in New York affords the opportunity to screen an array of contemporary and classic films depicting the diverse experiences of Africans on the continent and around the world. 

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  • Ottis Ba: A Tooth for a Tooth, 2022

  • Rungano Nyoni: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, 2024

  • Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow: Camp de Thiaroye, 1988

  • José Miguel Ribeiro: Nayola, 2022

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

Past Films

  • A Tooth for a Tooth

    Ottis Ba
    Senegal, Belgium, France, 2022
    Thursday, March 6 7:00 PM
    Introduced by Ivy Mills

    A hapless Senegalese civil servant loses his job thanks to International Monetary Fund austerity measures and, after countless humiliations, seeks vengeance against the very man who created them in this darkly comic take on the new world economy—and those at the wrong end of it.

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  • On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

    Rungano Nyoni
    Zambia, United Kingdom, Ireland, 2024
    Friday, March 14 7:00 PM

    A partygoer’s sudden discovery of her own uncle’s dead body opens up hidden secrets in this darkly funny, at times absurdist drama from the director of I Am Not a Witch. Winner of the Best Director award, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival.

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  • Camp de Thiaroye

    Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow
    Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, 1988

    New Digital Restoration

    Sunday, March 16 6:30 PM

    At the close of World War II, Senegalese troops are held in a Dakar transit camp that is little better than the concentration camps some of them have just braved. A “powerful indictment of colonialism . . . shows WWII’s effects on shaping the future of Africa” (Variety).

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  • Xalé

    Moussa Sene Absa
    Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, 2022
    Sunday, March 30 5:00 PM

    A teenage schoolgirl’s life is suddenly upended by the death of her grandmother in veteran Senegalese filmmaker Moussa Sene Absa’s powerful look at female rage and empowerment. “Blends universal melodrama with enticing traditional storytelling” (Variety). Screens with Johanna Makabi’s short Grâce.

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  • Nayola

    José Miguel Ribeiro
    Portugal, Belgium, France, Netherlands, 2022
    Saturday, April 5 4:00 PM
    Introduced by Ndola Prata

    Angola’s tragic twenty-five-year-long civil war is given an unexpected retelling in this stunning animated feature film, a remarkable Lusophone African companion to such titles as Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis. “Bold and thrilling storytelling” (Screen International).

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  • MK: Mandela’s Secret Army

    Osvalde Lewat
    South Africa, France, 2022
    Sunday, April 6 5:00 PM
    Introduced by Zamansele Nsele

    While Nelson Mandela is best known as a pacifist and statesman, this riveting documentary on the armed wing of the African National Congress underlines that, most of all, he was a freedom fighter. Powerful archival footage and interviews with surviving veterans drive home the brutality of apartheid, and the still-ongoing battle for justice. Screens with Chadrack Banikina’s short Ota Benga.

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