The New African Film Festival is returning to Washington, D.C., from March 13 to 26, celebrating its 22nd edition with one of its most diverse and internationally acclaimed selections yet.
Presented by the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Centre in collaboration with the Africa World Now Project, this year’s festival will feature 25 films from 18 countries across Africa and its global diaspora. The complete schedule will be revealed on February 18.
The festival will kick off with “My Father’s Shadow,” marking the feature debut of Nigerian British filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr. This film has made history as Nigeria’s first selection at Cannes, where it received a Caméra d’Or Special Mention. It has also been selected as the United Kingdom’s official entry for the 2026 Academy Awards. The story, featuring real-life brothers Godwin Egbo and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo along with Sope Dirisu, delves into themes of memory, fatherhood, and political transition, set on the day of Nigeria’s first election after a coup.
Festival highlights include “The Eyes of Ghana,” directed by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot, which honours Ghanaian cameraman Chris Hesse; “Cotton Queen,” the first narrative feature directed by a woman from Sudan, Suzannah Mirghani; and “Laundry,” a drama set during apartheid in South Africa that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Several prominent Cannes selections are also part of the lineup, including “Untamable” by Thomas Ngijol, “The Little Sister,” which won the Queer Palm, and Morad Mostafa’s debut feature “Aisha Can’t Fly Away.”
Adding to the lineup are multiple official Oscar contenders from Egypt, Morocco, Sweden, South Africa, and the U.K.
In innovative storytelling, Immersive Enterprise Laboratories (IEL) is launching “The Science of Animation,” a new short documentary now accessible on their website and social media platforms.
This documentary showcases a live pop-up experience at the Fleet Science Centre, providing visitors with a rare look into a fully operational animation production environment. During the event, attendees immersed themselves in a working animation pipeline where story, character development, and world-building occurred concurrently.
“The Science of Animation” highlights IEL’s creative system, which sets itself apart from traditional linear pipelines by allowing storytelling elements to evolve together in real time, rather than in separate stages.
“This exhibit demonstrated that the animation process can indeed evolve,” said Blake Baxter, co-founder of IEL. “We aren’t merely speeding up the traditional pipeline; we’re exploring what happens when story, character, and environment develop simultaneously. This immediate experience of ideas pushes the creative boundaries.”
The pop-up featured cutting-edge hardware and software, including HP Z Workstations powered by AMD Threadripper CPUs, NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 graphics, Unreal Engine, Adobe Substance 3D tools, Maxon Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Xencelabs drawing hardware, Vicon motion capture systems, JALI Research for facial animation, and real-time sound and camera technologies from Rebound Sound Company and Peel Software Development.
Attendees were guided by Ruby, IEL’s original character and host, as she walked them through the process of scanning materials, capturing performances, and witnessing their contributions reflected instantly in animated worlds.
“For years, animation has relied on delays and separate phases,” emphasised Daniel Urbach, co-founder of IEL. “We aimed to prove that these boundaries are unnecessary. By having performance, environment, and cinematography occur simultaneously, storytelling transforms into something you can experience in the moment of creation. This fundamentally alters how stories are shaped and who can participate.”
