31st New York African Film Festival

African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) is dedicated to advancing an enhanced understanding of African culture through the moving image. It offers diverse platforms for the wide distribution of African media through its flagship annual film festival and complementary year-round programming.

AFF is committed to increasing visibility and recognition for African media artists by introducing African film and culture to a broad range of audiences in the United States and abroad, bypassing economic, class, and racial barriers.

In 1990, AFF’s founders established goals that continue to enrich the organization’s mission and development, including using African cinema to promote and increase knowledge and understanding of African art, literature, and culture; developing an audience for African films; and expanding opportunities for the distribution of African films in the United States and abroad.

Presenting 91 films from more than 30 countries centered on the theme “Convergence of Time,” this year, the festival kicks off at FLC and will go on to the Maysles Documentary Center, concluding at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Dance Africa.

Discover the French co-productions screened at the festival below. For more information on the full lineup, click here.

Tickets are available here.

French Co-Productions at NYAFF31:

Banel & Adama, directed by Ramata Toulaye-Sy

Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families and that Adama won’t accept his duty as future chief. When Adama informs the village council of his intention, the whole community is disrupted. The rain that’s supposed to come doesn’t come. Banel and Adama will learn that where they live, there is no room for passions, let alone chaos.

La Chapelle, directed by Jean-Michel Tchissoukou

Set in the 1930s, La Chapelle depicts life in a village some distance from the administrative post, where people live by the traditions of their ancestors. Here, the priest of an Evangelical mission comes into conflict with a young school teacher.

L’Accord, directed by Frank Thierry Lea Malle

Flora, a girl living in a difficult neighborhood, is discovered drugged and raped at a party organized by her boyfriend Cédric, who lives in a residential area. To avoid a scandal, Cédric’s parents offer a large sum of money to Flora’s family to sign a confidentiality agreement. 

Dent pour Dent, directed by Ottis Ba Mamadou

Idrissa lives in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal. As a result of budgetary restrictions imposed by the IMF, then headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, he lost his job as a civil servant. Since then, Idrissa has been looking for work, without success. His pride as an African man is all the more affected by the fact that he is now entirely dependent on his wife, Viviane, who somehow manages to support the family through her medical practice. Aminata, Idrissa and Viviane’s daughter, and Moussa, two young students in love with each other, also see their lives disrupted by the economic situation imposed on the country. After yet another humiliation, Idrissa, who holds Strauss-Kahn responsible for his misfortune, decides to go and see a marabout to prepare his revenge…

Grace, directed by Johanna Makabi – Part of the Shorts Program: Global Africa at BAM

Maame is a God-fearing mother, who wants nothing but the best for her son, Kojo. But when he befriends an out and proud, expressive young man in their church, Maame must confront her fear of accepting Kojo’s burgeoning sexual identity or risk losing him.

Le Spectre de Boko Haram, directed by Cyrielle Raingou

In the village of Kolofata on the Nigerian border, the Cameroonian military has been dispatched to guard villagers from attacks by the religious terrorist group Boko Haram. In this milieu, filmmaker Cyrielle Raingou follows three young children as they navigate lost innocence while growing up in constant fear. Having sparked international outrage in 2014 with the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, Boko Haram may have fallen out of mainstream headlines, but the threat they represent, especially to children, is as omnipresent as ever.

MK: Mandela’s Secret Army, directed by Osvalde Lewat

MK: Mandela’s Secret Army chronicles the lives of former members of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress. The documentary is an intergenerational reflection on the all-consuming call to take up arms for South Africa’s liberation, heeded by young men and women, some barely in their teens, who gave up their lives and any future to risk death for the dream of a free South Africa. The young guerilla fighters of yesteryear are now aging veterans. How will history remember them? Where are they now, and how have they reconciled a past committed to liberation with a present-day reality that their contribution to a free South Africa has almost been forgotten?

Jeanne, directed by Antoine Paley – Part of Shorts Program: Perpetual Connections at Film at Lincoln Center

Jeanne Duval, the mixed-race muse and partner of Charles Baudelaire, has been forgotten by time and erased by history. But she refuses to remain silenced. In this short, we see April 27, 1842: a day in the life of Duval and Baudelaire. As the day goes on, the weight of Charles’ words and needs becomes increasingly difficult for Jeanne to bear.

Addis, My Father, directed by Kitoko Diva – Part of Shorts Program: Perpetual Connections at Film at Lincoln Center

A sense of the inevitable fills the silence between Addis and Rahel, a father and daughter, as they work tirelessly in their empty clock and antique repair shop.