New York African Film Festival Highlights New MACBETH Adaptation at BAM

Theater and African film lovers unite! Culture aficionados are converging on BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) for the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF). The festival runs at BAM through May 29 as FilmAfrica — the companion to the beloved DanceAfrica festival, long considered the unofficial start to summer in Brooklyn.

The 32nd NYAFF is the biggest-ever, featuring a record number of films this year, including Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions by Burkinabé director Dani Kouyaté. Winner of the Étalon d'Or de Yennenga (Best Film) at FESPACO 2025, the film, which interprets Shakespeare’s Macbeth through an African lens, will have its New York premiere at BAM Rose Cinemas on Sunday, with the director in attendance. The film will also screen on Tuesday at 6 p.m. 

African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF), which presents the festival in partnership with BAM, Film at Lincoln Center (FLC) and the Maysles Documentary Center, has announced that NYAFF will screen 125 contemporary and classic films from Africa and its diaspora. Under the banner “Fluid Horizons: A Shifting Lens on a Hopeful World,” this edition of the festival celebrates the African youth who have turned to their cameras to document their experiences and the influence of those who came before them. Genres include comedies, dramas, thrillers, documentaries, experimental films and more.

Similar to DanceAfrica, the BAM leg of the festival shines the spotlight on Mozambique, with the African nation’s first feature film Mueda, Memória e Massacre (Mueda, Memory and Massacre), a 1979 film by Ruy Guerra. Other Mozambiquan titles include Kuxa Kanema: The Birth of Cinema by Margarida Cardoso and Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret by João Ribeiro. Opening Night at BAM featured the North American premiere of Angèle Diabang’s So Long A Letter, the stirring adaptation of Senegalese author Mariama Bâ’s celebrated 1979 feminist novel, which won the first Noma Award for Publishing in Africa and which was rated among the top 12 in a tally of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in 2002. The festival also features the U.S. premiere of When I Say Africa, which takes on Western stereotypes about Africa; films about Sudan, including Khartoum and a shorts program; and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. 

Among the many filmmakers and guests expected to attend the festival at BAM are: Abbesi Akhamie (The Incredible Sensational Fiancée of Sèyí Àjàyí), Ifeyinwa Arinze (Breastmilk), Ahmad Cissé (Making Manifest | A WESHHHSIDE TALE), Phil Cox (Khartoum), Mirta Desir (Jean & I), Angèle Diabang (So Long A Letter), Nerenda Eid (Underground Railroad Ride), Azza Elhosseiny (director of Luxor African Film Festival), Tarek El Sherbeny (Rotten Blood), Cassandra Herrman (When I Say Africa), Sarra Idris and Selma Idris (curators, Shorts Program: No Place to Rest), Sean Jacobs (When I Say Africa), Naima Hebrail Kidjo (Jeanne), Dani Kouyate (Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions), Jard Lerebours (LESPRI), Manuel Loureiro (Nteregu), Berette S. Macaulay (Landscapes on Exile), Stevan Lee Mraovitch (Where There is Love, There is No Darkness), Kach Offor (Baptized by Fire), Fiz Olajide (Underground Railroad Ride), Yara Costa Pereira (a filmmaker representing the films from Mozambique), Sosena Solomon (Shorts Program 3: Africa’s Cultural Landmarks) and Taylor Wren (With a Promise to Love you Deeply). For tickets, visit here.