[MUSIC- Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Tiffany Hanssen: This is All Of It. I'm Tiffany Hanssen in for Alison Stewart. Thanks so much for spending part of your day with us. On today's show, we'll talk about the fashions and the pageantry at the Mets annual gala last night, where the theme was Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. New York Times fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman will talk to us about the gala, and we'll take your calls.

Author, Kaliane Bradley will also join us to talk about her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, in which a modern British government worker falls for a commander from the 1800s who has time-traveled to the present day. We'll also discuss the play Grenfell, about a tragic fire in a London housing complex, and a new documentary, The 50, which highlights the journeys of 50 incarcerated people who are in training to become substance abuse counselors. That's the plan. Let's get started with the New York African Film Festival.

[MUSIC- Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

Tiffany Hanssen: Tomorrow, The New York African Film Festival launches into its 31st annual week-long showcase of African and diaspora filmmakers. This year's theme is Convergence of Time, which "explores the intersection of historical and contemporary roles played by individuals representing Africa and its diaspora in art."

Over the course of the month, the New York African Film Festival will present more than 50 films from more than 25 countries, including Over the Bridge, a psychological thriller about an investment banker and struggling alcoholic in Lagos, Nigeria, and Fight Like a Girl, a film about a young Congolese woman who becomes a professional boxer, and Dilli Dark, a hip hop dramedy about a Nigerian student pursuing his MBA in New Delhi, India.

The screenings are shown at film at Lincoln Center from May 8th to the 14th. Programming continues at Maisel's Documentary Center in Harlem from May 17th to the 19th, and culminates at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music under the name Film Africa from May 24th to May 30th. That's during Dance Africa. To give us a preview of the festival is founder and curator, Mahen Bonetti, who joins us today. Mah, welcome to All Of It.

Mahen Bonetti: Thank you for having us.

Tiffany Hanssen: Also journalist and filmmaker, Oyiza Adaba, whose biographical documentary about the Ghanaian artist, El Anatsui, will make it to the screen at this year's festival. Oyiza, welcome to All Of It.

Oyiza Adaba: Thank you for inviting me.

Tiffany Hanssen: Listeners, of course, we would love to hear from you as well. Are you a fan of the African Film Festival? What is the first African film you remember watching? Are there directors, actors you're watching? Call us. Let us know what your favorites are. 212-433-9692. You can also text us at that number and you can find us on all the social medias @allofitwnyc.

Mah, let's start with you. Since the inception of the New York African Film Festival in 1993, you've curated films from Africa and the African diaspora. What was really the impetus behind founding this festival?

Mahen Bonetti: [chuckles] I would say it was an urgency, and over the course of the 30-plus years, when we first launched the New York African Film Festival, our intention has always been to present a picture of Africa from the African perspective.

For this 31st edition of the festival, we are presenting programs that are an embodiment of all those things and more. We were always mindful of celebrating the old and the new, and it is both the old and the new that inspires us and has kept us going. Of course, we are always introducing new voices. There's never a lack of content, which gives us this encouragement and also inspires us to keep us going as well.

As I said, as we enter this decade, we are truly inspired by these next generation of storytellers who are mindful of the past and are presenting the complexities of our spaces, our people, and challenging some of our traditions as well, and critiquing them, but while celebrating that ever-evolving experimentation of storytelling that those traditions allow and make possible.

There's so many new voices that are addressing a gamut of themes from religion, to coming of age, racism, the environment, ages, and love stories, and they're really mindful of many visions that are taking place in their spaces. There's a plethora of works and conversations which are equally as important as what you see on the screen that will be taking place over the month of May, so please, yes--

Tiffany Hanssen: I'm curious. Prior to 1993, when we mentioned that's when you founded the New York African Film Festival, where did people go to find these films?

Mahen Bonetti: That was it. There were films that would come through various festivals and were not seen by people whose stories were being told. For us, that was one of the things we were trying to redress. You would see them probably be at Art House Theaters or festivals. It was also about access to the information. Who got that information, and when? When I would go to, let's say Lincoln Center or, at the time, the public theater which also had a movie theater then, and the [unintelligible 00:06:30], this is where you'd see these films, and they were the auteur films.

You enter this space and I would see myself and maybe two other people of color, and I realized perhaps the information was not filtering into the community. That was one of the first things we wanted to address when we started doing our research, to make sure that everyone had access to this content, to these images.

It's an ongoing work, of course, but I feel that we have succeeded somehow [chuckles] in that we have a very diverse audience attending our festivals, our programs, which run throughout the year. We make sure we go into the communities in the summer. We have a National Traveling series as well. We do an education program. I describe us as a caravan that travels around pitching our tent and putting up the screen and inviting everyone to partake in these gatherings in manifestations.

Tiffany Hanssen: Thank you. Oyiza, in addition to the film that you have featured at the festival, you also founded Africa related media and content development company operating in Lagos, Nigeria, and also New York City. I'm curious how you have seen African filmmaking evolve since those early days at the New York African Film Festival.

Oyiza Adaba: Thank you, again. Yes, the film industry in Africa as a whole has evolved over the years, not just in New York from the days where it was only Ousmane Sembène that represented anything filmmaking in Africa. That was one name that was the first of so many things, and I think a great inspiration also to Mahen Bonetti for starting this festival, his earlier films like Wagner, Black Girl, and the rest. Then of course, all the filmmakers followed.

We look at a country like Burkina Faso, for example, one of the smallest countries, but the amount of films that came out of that country, and in my country, Nigeria later on with the rise of Nollywood and the growth of Nollywood dominating being the second largest film producer in the world. It really has come a long way, and it has developed, and of course with efforts of people like Mahen Bonetti and other film festival curators, not just in New York, but all over the world working hard, working tirelessly to sustain the African film industry that is just a beautiful platform to bring an understanding of Africa and Africans to the rest of the world.

Don't forget that film was used as a propaganda tool back in the day, during the colonial days where it was controlled by the colonialists and it used that to portray Africa and Africans in a certain way. It's a great thing for me as a journalist, as a film director now, this is the first one, and also a company owner, a company executive that sits in this space between my country, Nigeria, Africa as a continent, and a place like New York that is so vibrant in expression of culture and stories. It's great to see how it has evolved to this point.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, I definitely want to hear about the films coming out of Burkina Faso. I lived there for quite a while, so that's of interest to me [laughs]. More broadly, we talk about African films, but Africa is a continent and there are many, many countries and many, many voices and many, many histories and ways of storytelling. Mahen, I'm just curious how you address that. I know there are a number of films featured. In the curating of that, is that something you take into account?

Mahen Bonetti: Oh, yes, because it's not a singular story. There's so many stories coming out of Africa and her diaspora. We can't make assumptions about these creative practices. Coming back to what Oyiza was saying, what Nigeria, the Nollywood phenomena has really achieved is that it has created a homegrown industry.

Tiffany Hansen: I should just interrupt and say Nollywood, for people who don't know, are films coming out of Nigeria.

Mahen Bonetti: Right. It has also given a template to all these other nations on our continents and outside Africa to create their own nascent cinemas and the video explosion, one time all these auteurs turned their noses down at the video formats and Nigerians were at the- they had the crystal ball. Now everyone does video. The video format is what most filmmakers are using to produce their films.

I would say that, as I said, it's not a singular story. You have so many various stories coming out of the various countries and the diaspora. As I said, the themes range the gamut from religion to love stories. This is what is beautiful. We're inspired by these new generations of storytellers who are showing all these complexities, but also inspiring us to really delve into our own self- to be self-reflective, and to really see that what Africa has really given. I find her footsteps even here in the diaspora, despite what we think, she has really given us really the cultural-- Her footprints is in everyone's cultural references. I look at what defines American culture, and I see Africa everywhere. I go to Brazil, I go to Jamaica, and Africa is ever present in their cultural references.

This is why I feel that cinema is really important to also redress all those blind spots. As Oyiza was saying, images for so long were what people saw and believed this is what African Africans represented. We are reappropriating these images and correcting all these blind spots, as I said, and also cultural formations.

Tiffany Hansen: Sure. Mahen, tell us a little bit about the film that's opening the opening night, Over the Bridge.

Mahen Bonetti: Yes. Over the Bridge, it's a beautiful film. When we speak of Nollywood, Nollywood is the kernel. Each generation adds another layer to how you define Nollywood, the production value, the storytelling. You have experimentation Nollywood, you have sci-fi Nollywood, you have arthouse Nollywood.

This story, Over the Bridge, by Tolu Ajayi, is about a young man who is rising up in the banking system, and his company has been contracted by the government to oversee a high-profile project. Of course, when the project goes awry, he has to find a solution to redressing this problem, but also finding a solution to his own success and his own being.

He goes back in time, you might say, he goes back to a village to find a solution, to find an answer. It's like soul searching. That's why when we say we are celebrating the old and the new because the new is informed by the old, and the old and the future are always present in the new. It's very well made. We have the filmmaker with us who just arrived, by the way. We're very happy.

Tiffany Hansen: Good.

Mahen Bonetti: He'll be there tomorrow.

Tiffany Hansen: Great.

Mahen Bonetti: He will tell us more about what is going on within the Nollywood industry and also his generation of filmmakers.

Tiffany Hansen: Oyiza, we know that there are different types of Nollywood films, obviously all of the types that Mahen was just talking about. Is there a unique characteristic to the style that you could put your finger on?

Oyiza: You are right, Nollywood is quite diverse and Nollywood has evolved itself. Nollywood itself has grown from the days of just quick turnouts on DVD and the more films we make, they emphasize so much on the quantity of films rather than the quality. Part of the evolution is what we see now is the emphasis on the quality of films that are coming out of Nigeria and the Nollywood market, and also the inspiration it's formed for other countries like Ghana, and Uganda, and Kenya that have gone on to develop their own film industries.

If you're looking for that unifying factor, I think what we can just simply say is that Africans love to tell African stories. We like to tell our stories. For so long, it's been told for us, but it's now been told by us. Initially, we didn't put as much emphasis on the how of telling it. I think the new crop of producers, directors, writers, actors and actresses that have come up now, they're changing those narratives that our films can now compete in any given platform across the globe. We've seen a new crop of people that have those interests at heart.

Also, one of the things I must mention at this point is the need to-- Look, we've got to face it. We've never really been the biggest or the best at archiving and documenting. Even materials that were shot as early as the '70s and '80s are lost today. We had to step back and say, "Where is our past? Where are we? How can we tell a complete story about ourselves if we can't even bridge these gaps?" The way to do it is through film, is through cinema.

It's also provided an outlet for people to express themselves freely. You may not be able to do that through music or as a writer, as a journalist, but with film, not very many people can hold you unless they censor you. It's become that reverse political tool for the African filmmaker to be able to put out very important statements about the African people.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, before we let you go, one last question here for you, Oyiza, about your film, about the artist El Anatsui. Just give us a little brief outline of what film buffs can expect when they come to the African Film Festival.

Oyiza Adaba: Absolutely. Well, you give us two hours of your time. It's 120 minutes. We'll be able to tell you a very detailed and deep story about one of the most globally recognized sculptors and artists of our time who normally has been very private about his life in Nigeria and in Ghana, up until now, where we really had to delve deeper and say, who is this man? How can we share him and what he's done in not just the art world, but just being an amazing humanist and share him with the rest of the world? That's why we went, sought his permission, and started working with him about 10 years ago. He signed us in 2013.

Tiffany Hansen: Give us the title again.

Mahen Bonetti: It's DELA: The Making of El Anatsui, and it's showing on the 12th of May at 3:30 PM at Film at Lincoln Center. It was selected to show as part of the New York African Film Festival.

Tiffany Hansen: Love it, All right. The films are at film at Lincoln Center from May 8th to May 14th. Again at Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem from May 17th to the 19th, and at BAM under the name Film Africa from May 24th to May 30th. We've been talking about the New York African Film Festival with the founder and curator, Mahen Bonetti. Mahen, thank you so much for your time today.

Mahen Bonetti: Thank you for having us, and hope to see you at the movies.

Tiffany Hansen: Yes, absolutely. Oyiza Adaba, thank you. You're a journalist filmmaker, so many other things we could say about you, but we're really looking forward to your film. Thanks for your time.

Oyiza Adaba: Appreciate it. Thanks.

Mahen Bonetti: Thank you.

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