The 32nd New York African Film Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music – Part 1

Opening Night film was the North American premiere of Angèle Diabang’s SO LONG A LETTER (Audience Q&A With Director is in Part 2)

Film Synopsis: Ramatoulaye, played by Amelie Mbaye,  headmistress of a primary school in Dakar and the mother of seven children, has been married to Modou for 30 years, and is shocked when he decides to take a second wife, 20-year-old Binetou. SO LONG A LETTER tells a merciless battle between tradition and modernity ensues, contrasting very different views of women’s roles in contemporary African society is superbly told. – Film has been receiving rave reviews. {The BAM screening was followed by an Opening Night Party.}

 

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African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF) and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) again joined forces for the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF). The 32nd NYAFF is presenting 51 features and shorts films at BAM Rose Cinemas as FilmAfrica — the companion to the beloved DanceAfrica festival, long considered the unofficial start to summer in Brooklyn. Featuring more than 125 contemporary and classic films from Africa and its diaspora screening throughout the full festival. Many filmmakers will be in attendance for post-screening

This year’s theme, “Fluid Horizons: A Shifting Lens on a Hopeful World,” honors the resilience of African youth and the forebears  who paved the way for them. Since its inception in 1993, the festival has been at the forefront of showcasing African and diaspora filmmakers’ unique storytelling through the moving image. The Opening Night selection at BAM was the North American premiere of SO LONG A LETTER, the film adaptation of the groundbreaking 1979 award-winning feminist novel by Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ.

The festival, which opened earlier this month at Film at Lincoln Center before moving to the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem, runs at BAM from May 23 to 29. It culminates with a free outdoor screening at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem on Saturday, May 31. BAM Rose Cinemas, Peter Jay Sharp Building (30 Lafayette Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217).

 

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May 23 Red Carpet,  Celebration – Pictures

 

 

 

Click here for Audience, Director Q&A in Part 2