36 Years at NYAFF Digital Exhibition

This free exhibition will take place Thursday, May 7 through Tuesday, May 12 in the Amphitheater at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, playing on a loop on Saturday and Sunday from noon to close, and on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday from 4pm to close.

When Mahen Bonetti left her corporate career to establish African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) in 1990, she relied not on formal training but on a deep commitment and instinct for community-building. Soon, a dynamic network of filmmakers, artists, scholars, cultural workers, and industry professionals gathered to breathe life into the first African-centered film festival in the global cultural hub of New York City. Since then, the New York African Film Festival’s (NYAFF) story has been carefully documented and stored. In recent years, AFF has begun cataloguing these materials into an archival collection that includes approximately 3,000 rare film titles from more than 90 countries; an audiovisual archive with 90 magnetic tapes, 51 audiocassettes and microcassettes, and 163 optical media; more than 300 posters and hundreds of photographs; as well as extensive printed materials and festival records. 

This digital exhibition presents selected moments from NYAFF’s larger collection, featuring never-before-seen interviews, discussions, and photographs with a host of pioneering figures and friends of the festival such as Ousmane Sembène, Safi Faye, Bill Greaves, Sarah Maldoror, Harry Belafonte, Rita Marley, Danny Glover, Wole Soyinka, Miriam Makeba, and Ossie Davis, amongst others. Presented alongside the exhibition are photographs documenting the communities brought together through NYAFF’s programs, parties, and events over the years. Key Archival Collection Funder: Ford Foundation, JustFilms; Archivist: Kirk Mudle; Exhibition Curator: Taylor Dews.