Traveling Series

The Traveling Series captures the best of the current Festival and is designed to bring the unique experience of watching African cinema to the broadest possible audience. The programming package may be tailored from the selection of feature films and shorts, and include promotional and educational material. Screenings are scheduled throughout the year by various cultural and educational institutions.

view National Traveling Series 1995 – date

Educational Programs

AFF has created two programs to reach young audiences. The first, the Young Adults Education Program brings New York City middle and high school students to an annual matinee program during the Festival. Short films are screened that are age-appropriate and relevant to African history, geography, politics, and culture. AFF’s facilitator moderates dialogue with visiting directors after the screening.

AFF’s In-School Program was initiated in 2000 with a middle school of seventy-five students in one of New York City’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. With EHSEH staff, AFF has developed a model curriculum that augments traditional materials with African films and visiting African artists and scholars. AFF is in the planning stages to expand the program to other schools, including a very active collaboration with Global Kids in recent years.

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International Partnerships

AFF contributes to many cross-cultural projects and has become a resource for programmers worldwide. The AFF Network reflects this unique perspective on the film industry. AFF has been to Burkina Faso to scout FESPACO since 1993. In the mid-1990s the Bob Marley Foundation hosted the African Film Festival at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1996, AFF curated the film program of Africa: Art of a Continent, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and, in 1997, went on to co-curate the African and African Diaspora Film Series for the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale. Recently, AFF partnered with the Celebration of African Heritage to co-curate a pan-African film festival in Brazil as well as Africala in Mexico. As our reputation for quality programming grows, so does the community of individuals and organizations committed to cultural understanding. In 2007 AFF met with partners in Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Sudan, Brazil, St. Kitts and Nevins, as well as organizers from North Africa and the Middle East. In 2010, AFF curated a program of shorts in St. Petersburg, Russia, in collaboration with Message to Man Festival and with Imagem dos Povos in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Sierra Leone Cultural Conservation Program

The Sierra Leone Cultural Conservation Program (CCP), utilizes AFF’s resources to facilitate audiovisual production and exhibition, with renewed energy and reach, in Sierra Leone. The CCP, a program of AFF run by local artists and journalists, is a sustainable, ongoing program with a three-year youth audiovisual workshop at its core. The CCP workshop engages a diverse team of young Sierra Leoneans in the documentation of local culture, and in the creation of a public space where all Sierra Leoneans can celebrate their common heritage. Instructors guide participants in the production, dissemination, and archiving of media documentary projects. The program engages the greater Sierra Leonean community through regular radio spots airing excerpts of audio projects; exhibitions at the Sierra Leone National Museum; opportunities for the public to share their own stories through oral histories; screenings of local and other African films; and the establishment of a permanent, publicly-accessible audiovisual library. Visit the CCP website

Community-based Screenings

AFF’s bring African films directly to New York neighborhoods with limited cultural resources, taking African cinema out of the art-house and into community-based cultural institutions, public parks and other settings. These screening reach many who may be unable to attend our annual Festival due to cost or location.

Community-based screening partners have included cultural institutions and city agencies, such as Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Aaron Davis Hall, City College, Ocularis, and the CityParks Foundation, Governors Island Preservation & Education Corporation, Queens Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of Art, Columbia University Institute of African Studies, just to name a few, to bring free film screenings, music and dance, workshops, panels and art shows to the public. Select Locations of the 2010 Community and Outdoor Screenings: Schomburg Center for Research in Black History and Culture (Harlem, NY), Columbia University (Harlem, NY), Flushing Meadows Corona Park Queens, NY; Saint Nicholas Park 10 Saint Nicholas Terrace New York, NY 10027; Andrew Freedman Home 1125 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10452; St Nicholas Ave & W 135th St, New York, New York, NY 10030; Governors Island New York, NY 10004; Great Hill New York, NY 10025.

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