At a time when international headlines focus obsessively on Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, we could all use a peek into life on the African continent.
Meeting the moment is the 32nd New York African Film Festival, which premieres May 7 and runs through May 13 at Film at Lincoln Center. It then continues at Maysles Documentary Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as FilmAfrica during DanceAfrica), and at St. Nicholas Park.
This year’s festival includes more than 100 films. It opens with Nigerian director Afolabi Olalekan’s “Freedom Way,” a tragic look at how various forms of corruption infect and connect the lives of everyday people trying to eke out a living in Lagos.
The showcase entry, “Memories of Love Returned,” is a documentary directed by American-Ugandan playwright and documentarian, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, and executive produced by Steven Soderberg. Set in rural Uganda, the film initially pivots intimately around the work and life of a gifted local portrait photographer, Kibaate Aloysius Ssalongo, but eventually stretches around the irrepressible stories that are resurrected when community memory is captured and retold through photography. Also noteworthy, Mauritanian-born Malian director, Abderrahmane Sissako, will hold the New York premiere of his newest film, “Black Tea,” at the festival. Sissako’s 2014 film “Timbuktu” was an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film nominee.
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The festival closes with a shorts program of women-centered films.
In addition to cinema, the festival will feature two art exhibitions, one highlighting the work of the artist Bereket Adamo from The Southern Peoples Nations of Ethiopia, and the other entitled “Congo Re-Vue,” showcasing the work of Congolese artists. For more info, visit africanfilmny.org.
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