Film at Lincoln Center and African Film Festival, Inc. have unveiled the complete lineup for the 33rd New York African Film Festival (NYAFF), a showcase of African and Diaspora filmmaking that has run continuously since 1993. This year’s edition, organized around the theme “As the Stars Sow the Earth,” presents 14 feature films and 25 short films — many from first-time directors — that reckon with colonialism’s afterlives while imagining sovereign futures rooted in land, ancestry, and ecological connection. The festival runs May 6–12 at Film at Lincoln Center, preceded by a Town Hall on May 1 at the Africa Center, and continues through the end of the month at the Maysles Documentary Center, BAM, and St. Nicholas Park.
“Across this year’s selection, filmmakers are reimagining the landscapes we inherit — drawing from ancestral wisdom not as something to leave behind, but as a source of renewal and possibility,” said Mahen Bonetti, founder and Executive Director of African Film Festival, Inc.
THE LINEUP
Opening Night
The festival opens May 6 with the New York premiere of Erige Sehiri’s Promised Sky (France/Tunisia/Qatar, 2025, 95m). Marie, an Ivorian pastor who has lived in Tunisia for a decade, takes in a young mother, a student, and an orphaned shipwreck survivor, forming a makeshift family under mounting social pressure. The film opened the 2025 Cannes Un Certain Regard program and stars César Award nominee Aïssa Maïga and Laetitia Ky, both scheduled to attend for a post-screening Q&A. A second screening follows May 7 at 2:00 p.m.
Centerpiece
The Eyes of Ghana (U.S./Ghana/U.K., 2025, 90m), directed by two-time Academy Award winner Ben Proudfoot and executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, follows 93-year-old photographer Chris Hesse — once personal cinematographer to Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah — as he and a young Ghanaian filmmaker race against his impending blindness to recover more than 1,000 films long thought destroyed. The footage, never seen publicly, could rewrite African and world history. The film won the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Screens May 8 at 5:45 p.m. with a Q&A with Proudfoot.
Features
Afrotōpia (Gabon, 2025, 128m) — David Mboussou. A 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker, forced into his father’s logging business, discovers a plan to exploit a sacred indigenous forest and unearths a buried colonial family secret. Franco-Gabonese director Mboussou calls the film an “ecological manifesto.” New York Premiere. Screens May 9 at 2:45 p.m. with Q&A.
Barni (Somalia/Djibouti/U.S., 2024, 90m) — Mohammed Sheikh. In a Somali village, a 9-year-old girl goes missing after a wedding celebration, sending her older sister and two friends on a journey to the city to find her. Sheikh’s directorial debut transforms a disappearance into a celebration of courage and loyalty. New York Premiere. Screens May 9 at 6:00 p.m. with Q&A.
The Heart Is a Muscle (South Africa/Saudi Arabia, 2025, 86m) — Imran Hamdulay. At his son’s fifth birthday barbecue, Ryan panics when the boy briefly vanishes. His violent reaction unravels long-buried secrets and forces a reckoning with his past. A redemption story steeped in hip-hop culture, it won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 2025 Berlinale Panorama and was South Africa’s official entry for the 2026 Academy Awards. New York Premiere. Screens May 11 at 5:45 p.m. with Q&A.
Lace Relations (Nigeria/Austria, 2025, 88m) — Anette Baldauf, Chioma Onyenwe, Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, Katharina Weingartner. This collectively directed documentary uncovers the centuries-long textile trade between Vorarlberg, Austria, and Lagos, Nigeria, revealing how colonial legacies enriched Europe while collapsing West Africa’s indigenous textile economy. U.S. Premiere. Screens May 10 at 3:30 p.m. with Q&A.
My Father and Qaddafi (U.S./Libya, 2025, 88m) — Jihan. When the director was six years old, her father — Libyan opposition leader Mansur Rashid Kikhia — disappeared. Her debut documentary, which premiered at Venice and won the Jury Prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival, retraces his life and the 19-year search her mother conducted to find the truth. New York Premiere. Screens May 7 at 5:30 p.m. with Q&A.
Rumba Royale (DRC/Belgium/France/U.S., 2025, 97m) — Hamed Mobasser and Yohane Dean Lengol. Set in 1959 Léopoldville in the final days of Belgian colonial rule, the film follows a young photographer who grows close to an ambitious waitress as the world of a legendary rumba nightclub begins to unravel. Congolese star Fally Ipupa makes his big-screen acting debut. North American Premiere. Screens May 10 at 6:00 p.m. with Q&A.
So Long a Letter (Senegal, 2025, 105m) — Angèle Diabang. An adaptation of Mariama Bâ’s landmark 1979 novel, widely considered one of the first feminist literary works of modern Africa. A 50-year-old Dakar headmistress navigates tradition and personal freedom after her husband of 30 years takes a second wife. Diabang’s feature debut. Screens May 8 at 8:30 p.m. with Q&A.
The Soul of Africa (France/U.S./Togo, 2025, 67m) — Gabriel Souleyka. Souleyka’s debut feature documentary explores African spirituality before the arrival of Christianity and Islam, drawing on immersive footage from the 10th Festival of Black Divinities in Togo. World Premiere. Screens May 10 at 12:45 p.m.
When Nigeria Happens (Belgium/Nigeria, 2025, 119m) — Ema Edosio Deelen. A contemporary dance drama following a group of misfit Lagos dancers whose tight-knit world is tested when one of them desperately searches for funds after his mother falls critically ill. World premiered at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival. New York Premiere. Screens May 9 at 8:30 p.m. with Q&A. Preceded by the North American premiere of Akosua (Ghana, 2023, 7m), an intimate portrait of five lifelong friends in Kumasi.
Restorations
Caméra arabe (Tunisia/France, 1987, 65m) — Férid Boughedir, restored in 4K. A fast-paced documentary linking the rise of politically engaged Arab cinema from the 1960s onward — from the Six-Day War to the Lebanon War — through filmmaker testimonies and archival clips. Features key voices including Youssef Chahine. U.S. Premiere of Restoration. Screens May 12 at 5:45 p.m. with a Q&A with Boughedir.
Caméra d’Afrique (Tunisia/France, 1983, 95m) — Férid Boughedir, restored in 2K. Using extracts, interviews, and rare vintage footage, Boughedir documents the first 20 years of auteur cinema in sub-Saharan Africa — made by newly independent Africans who finally took hold of the camera. Restored from the original 16mm print by the CNC Laboratory. Screens May 9 at 12:00 p.m., followed by an extended audience conversation with Boughedir.
En résidence surveillée (Senegal, 1981, 102m) — Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, restored in 4K. The only fiction feature by the pioneering Senegalese filmmaker whose 1955 short Afrique sur Seine was the first film made entirely by Africans. A biting political satire set in a fictional African state gripped by corruption, media control, and forced exile. The restoration was championed by Vieyra’s children. U.S. Premiere of Restoration. Screens May 11 at 8:15 p.m., preceded by two short films: the world premiere of N’Dobine (U.S., 2026, 6m) and the U.S. premiere of Vieyra, The Innovative Pioneer (France, 2025, 9m).
Short Film Programs
Shorts Program 1: Crossings (90m) — Screens May 7 at 8:30 p.m. and May 8 at 3:00 p.m. The program includes Tomisin Sarumi’s Departing; Johanna Makabi’s Happy Meal (U.S. Premiere); Herrana Addisu’s The River, honoring Ethiopian women’s experiences along the Kebena River; Eseoghene Obrimah’s Heartbreaks & Ocean Waves (New York Premiere); Agathe Moubembé’s Faux Lion, about a boy who sneaks into a Senegalese lion-dancer festival; Stephanie Adusei-Boateng’s Knotless (World Premiere), about a Ghanaian-American woman relocating to Ghana; Rashida Seriki’s Leaving Ikorodu in 1999 (New York Premiere); and Chiemeka Offor’s Nwanne M Nwaanyi (U.S. Premiere), a visual meditation on the bond between two Igbo sisters.
Shorts Program 2: Go Back and Get It (112m) — Screens May 10 at 8:45 p.m. and May 12 at 2:00 p.m. The program includes Femi and Emmanuel Oluwaseyi Bajulaye’s Ekun Omi (New York Premiere), about migration and identity in Lagos; Josh Bridge’s Caleb (World Premiere), in which a grandson struggles to connect with his fading Nigerian grandmother; Judy Kibinge’s Goat (New York Premiere), a darkly comic Kenyan thriller about ancestral debt; Karanja Ng’endo’s Of Kimani (World Premiere), about an aging couple navigating early-onset dementia; Cecilia Zoppelletto’s Clichés (U.S. Premiere), set in a Kinshasa home where tensions quietly surface; and Idris Elba’s Dust to Dreams (New York Premiere), the actor-director’s first short film, following the owner of a Lagos nightclub who entrusts its future to her shy but talented daughter.
Shorts Program 3: The Art of Protection — Closing Night, May 12 at 8:00 p.m. The program includes Shiloh Tumo Washington’s Bailey’s Blues (New York Premiere), set during a tense 1960s France jazz interview; Justice Rutikara’s Ibuka, Justice (New York Premiere), an animated odyssey set during the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Catherine McKinley, Mamadou Tapily, and Marc Lesser’s Keïta La, a portrait of photographer Seydou Keïta’s family legacy in Mali; Aminata Drynie Bockarie’s Where the Water Meets Us (World Premiere), on the heritage and climate crisis facing Bonthe Island in Sierra Leone; Nimco Sheikhaden’s Exodus, a portrait of two women navigating life after decades of incarceration; Klein Ongaki’s The Land Smiles Back (North American Premiere), about the Samburu people’s ancient water technology in Kenya; Abdelkrim Boughoud’s Eauquation, documenting a centuries-old water system in Morocco; and Marwa Eltahir’s 99 Names: My Liberation Is Tied to Yours (New York Premiere), an audio-visual meditation on grief and the Afro-Arab diaspora.
Special Program
36 Years at NYAFF: Digital Exhibition — On view select hours May 7–12 in the Amphitheater at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Drawing from an archival collection of approximately 3,000 rare film titles and extensive audiovisual materials, the exhibition presents never-before-seen interviews and photographs featuring Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye, Harry Belafonte, Rita Marley, Danny Glover, Miriam Makeba, Ossie Davis, and others.
Tickets go on sale April 1 at 2:00 p.m. ET ($19 general admission; $16 students, seniors, and persons with disabilities; $14 FLC Members). Multi-film packages start at $17 and all-access passes are available for $89 ($65 for students). FLC Members receive early access beginning at noon on April 1. For information on the Opening Night party, contact info@africanfilmny.org.
Following its Film at Lincoln Center run, the festival moves to the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem (May 15–17), then to BAM as FilmAfrica during DanceAfrica (May 22–28), and closes with an outdoor screening at St. Nicholas Park on May 30.
For more information, visit filmlinc.org or africanfilmny.org.