The Heart Is a Muscle
New York African Film Festival 2026
May 6 - 12
An Ecumenical Jury Prize winner at the Berlinale and South Africa’s entry to the 2026 Academy Awards, this moving redemption story centers on a father forced to confront the past after his violent reaction to his young son’s brief disappearance.
At his son’s fifth birthday barbecue, Ryan (Keenan Arrison) panics when the boy suddenly goes missing. His violent reaction to the scare sets off a chain of events that exposes long-buried secrets from his past. As tensions rise among friends and old wounds resurface, Ryan is forced to confront who he has been and who he wants to become. A redemption story deeply infused with hip-hop culture, Imran Hamdulay’s debut feature won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at 2025 Berlinale Panorama and was South Africa’s official entry for Best International Feature at the 2026 Academy Awards. Hamdulay has been featured on CNN’s Inside Africa as one of “Africa’s directors to watch.”
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