The 12th Annual New York African Film Festival
April 20th through April 28th, 2005


The African Film Festival, Inc. has just opened the Twelfth New York African Film Festival, which will showcase 24 films from 12 countries, including a number of whose national cinema are mostly unknown to US audiences, such as Niger, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Angola and Mozambique. The astonishing variety of themes and styles presented in this year’s program are indicative of the diversity of Africa, reflecting the poetry and politics of Africa today.

The series will also feature the best of recent and classic African cinema at the Walter Reade Theater of Lincoln Center from April 20th-28th, 2005 and continue at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from May 26th-29th, 2005. The program for the 2005 African Film Festival will include themes and highlights such as:
• Race in the Continent’s Diaspora – AFF will take a close look at the construction of race within the African Continent, with a special look at race formation in South Africa. Despite the segregation of Blacks and Whites during Apartheid, South Africa’s racial delineation is far more complex, including the demarcation of peoples of mixed race, also called “Colored”. Several of the films in this year’s festival address the categorization of Coloreds in the Diaspora while redefining what race relations mean in today’s increasingly globalized world.
• A Peek Behind the Camera – The wealth and beauty of African filmmaking is drawn from the unique and rich tradition of African storytelling. This year’s Behind the Camera Program will look at the legacy of the Griot culture, and the art of storytelling with and without the tool of the camera, and its subsequent effects on a culture.
• Mid-Career Retrospective of Pierre Yameogo – Having appeared over the years in the New York Film Festival, the New York African Film Festival and AFF’s National Traveling Series, and most recently been featured in this year’s Annual Movie Issue of the New York Times Magazine, Pierre Yameogo has been selected as the featured Mid-Career Retrospective artist for this year’s Festival. Yameogo’s filmmaking has been popular with audiences worldwide, and four of his films will be presented in the 2005 festival.
• Ousmane Sembene Recognition- Heralded as the “Father of African Cinema,” Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene’s will be recognized this year for his most recent film “Moolaadé”. This film has garnered international critical acclaim, in festivals worldwide including Cannes, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals. Both films, “Moolaadé” and “The Making of Moolaadé” will be shown twice, with Sembene present to introduce the films.
• Exhibition at Furman Gallery - Walter Reade Theater: Photograph Portraits from Burkina Faso, by Patricia Blanchet. Void of cliché exoticism, Blanchet’s photos are neither photojournalistic nor photo-documentary -rather they portray an intimate view of this West African country through captivating images of portraits, interiors, architecture and landscapes.
In addition, AFF’s yearly Festival Panel Discussion will be hosted at Columbia University School of the Arts and will allow participants the opportunity for further exploration of the Festival’s theme of Race in the Continent’s Diaspora.

PICTURES: 3 Vitorio and Judite