Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history and magic realism. The term was coined by American cultural critic Mark Dery in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson.
The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) is a critically acclaimed film festival held in New York City, dedicated to the display of Asian film and culture. The New York Asian Film Festival generally features contemporary premieres and classic titles from Eastern Asia and Southeast Asia, though South Asian cinema has also been represented via films from India and Pakistan.
The National Film Festival for Talented Youth, held annually in Seattle, Washington, showcases work by filmmakers 24 and under from across the U.S. and the world. Founded in 2007, it has since become the most influential youth-oriented film festival in North America, featuring early work by several notable filmmakers, including Gigi Saul Guerrero, Ben Proudfoot, and Rayka Zehtabchi. The festival includes film screenings, filmmaking workshops and panels, concerts by youth bands, and a gala opening night.
The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each March in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival is known for its close relationship with John Waters, who is on the festival's board of directors and selects a favorite film to host within each year of the festival.
The Trinidad and Tobago film festival is a film festival in the Anglophone Caribbean. It takes place annually in Trinidad and Tobago in the latter half of September, and runs for approximately two weeks. The festival screens feature-length narrative and documentary films, as well as short and experimental films.
Cauleen Smith is an American born filmmaker and multimedia artist. She is best known for her feature film Drylongso and her experimental works that address the African-American identity, specifically the issues facing black women today. Smith is currently a professor in the Department of Art at the University of California - Los Angeles.
The L.A. Rebellion film movement, sometimes referred to as the "Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers", or the UCLA Rebellion, refers to the new generation of young African and African-American filmmakers who studied at the UCLA Film School in the late-1960s to the late-1980s and have created a black cinema that provides an alternative to classical Hollywood cinema.
Akosua Adoma Owusu is a Ghanaian-American filmmaker and producer. Her films explore the colliding identities of black immigrants in America through multiple forms ranging from cinematic essays to experimental narratives to reconstructed Black popular media. Interpreting the notion of "double consciousness," coined by sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, Owusu aims to create a third cinematic space or consciousness. In her work, feminism, queerness, and African identities interact in African, white American, and black American cultural spaces.
The 50 Year Argument is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese and co-directed by David Tedeschi about the history and influence of the New York Review of Books, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2013. The documentary premiered in June 2014 at the Sheffield Doc/Fest and was soon screened in Oslo and Jerusalem before airing on the British Arena television series in July. It was also screened at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and was seen at the New York Film Festival, in September, and at other film festivals. It first aired on HBO in September 2014 and was given other national broadcasts. It had a limited theatrical release in Toronto in 2015.
Stephen Cone is an American filmmaker who has received early career retrospectives on the Criterion Channel, MUBI and at the Museum of the Moving Image, Berlin's Unknown Pleasures Festival and Manchester's Bigger Than Life..
Jane Jin Kaisen is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Terence Nance is an American filmmaker, writer, director, actor and musician from Dallas, Texas. He is best known for his directing debut An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, and as the creator of the avant-garde TV program Random Acts of Flyness, which is produced by his production company MVMT and airs on HBO.
Driftwood is an American independent film written and directed by Paul Taylor. The film had its world premiere at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for best narrative feature.
Erin Christovale is a Los Angeles–based curator and programmer who currently works as a curator at the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles. Together with Hammer Museum Senior Curator Anne Ellegood, Christovale curated the museum's fourth Made in L.A. biennial in June 2018. She also leads Black Radical Imagination, an experimental film program she co-founded with Amir George. Black Radical Imagination tours internationally and has screened at MoMA PS1; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museo Taller Jose Clemente Orozco, among other spaces. Christovale is best known for her work on identity, race and historical legacy. Prior to her appointment at the Hammer Museum, Christovale worked as a curator at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
Hannah Beachler is an American production designer. The first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Production Design, she is known for her Afrofuturist design direction of Marvel Studios film series Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Beachler has been involved in numerous projects directed by Beyoncé, including Lemonade and Black Is King.
Caroline Monnet is an Anishinaabe French and Canadian contemporary artist and filmmaker known for her work in sculpture, installation, and film.
Kahlil Davis, known professionally as Kahlil Joseph, is an American filmmaker, music video director, and video artist. Joseph is known for creating "intellectually and emotionally dense short films" that center on the experience of African Americans in the United States. He was a 2017 Artadia Awardee.
M. Asli Dukan is an American independent media producer, filmmaker and visual artist based in Philadelphia working with themes of speculative fiction and Afrofuturism.
Amelia Umuhire is a Rwandan-German film director, producer, and screenwriter.
Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room is an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit, which opened on November 5, 2021, uses a period room format of installation to envision the past, present, and future home of someone who lived in Seneca Village, a largely African American settlement which was destroyed to make way for the construction of Central Park in the mid-1800s.
