FilmAfrica 2025

DanceAfrica and African Film Festival, Inc. welcome you warmly to the 32nd edition of FilmAfrica! Presented as part of the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) and this year convened under the theme Fluid Horizons: A Shifting Lens of a Hopeful World, FilmAfrica honors the resilience of African youth and the forebears who paved the way.

While giant strides have been made by Africa since independence, its nations are still working to eliminate colonial remnants such as poverty, inequality, and political instability. Additionally, climate change has worsened agriculture and pastoralism, often leading to land disputes, interethnic conflict, and eventually youth emigration. However, African youth remain hopeful, using cinematic storytelling to emphasize the continent's potential. Even when displaced, they carry African culture with them, sharing their love of the motherland across the globe. FilmAfrica honors those young creators as well as those who used the power of the activist lens before them, without whose stories the chronicles of African cinematic history are incomplete.

To that end, FilmAfrica brings you over 30 contemporary and classic films from Africa and her diaspora. This edition opens with So Long a Letter (2025), a cinematic adaptation by Angèle Diabang of Mariama Ba’s critically acclaimed novel from the 70s. Also being presented is the 2025 Yennenga winner Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions. In celebration of DanceAfrica’s guest country, Mozambique, FilmAfrica will be presenting that nation’s first-ever feature film, Memories, Murder and Massacre (1979) as well as the revolutionary classic Kuxna Kanema (2023). Highlighting the intersection of both early and modern cinema activism, FilmAfrica will also be screening Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat (2024) and Khartoum (2025). Our closing film, The Night Still Smells of Gunpowder (2024), is an ode to peace after turbulent times.

With genres ranging from experimental to comedy, FilmAfrica offers a multidimensional take on African culture, history and cinema that all are sure to enjoy.