This year’s programme cuts across contemporary features, shorts and documentaries, as well as retrospectives and discourses bordering on the histories and creative possibilities of African cinema.
By Adedamola Jones Adedayo
Film Africa, the annual UK-based festival organised by the Royal African Society to celebrate African cinema, has returned for its 13th edition, marking the Society’s 125th anniversary with a lineup of Afrocentric film screenings and activities. Under the theme “125 Years of Storytelling and Movie Making in Africa”, the forthcoming edition will present a range of voices and works in African cinema from across and beyond the continent.
This year’s programme cuts across contemporary features, shorts and documentaries, as well as retrospectives and discourses bordering on the histories and creative possibilities of African cinema. It will also examine themes such as memory, migration, identity, labour, gender, political history, and social change.
The 13th edition also places a particular focus on women and their contributions to cinema, with the festival featuring a major symposium titled “TWENDE: African Women and Cinema”, which is set to take place at BFI Southbank on 24th October. Literally translated from Swahili as “let us go”, TWENDE examines the growing contributions of African women to cinema, both in front of and behind the scenes. The symposium will bring together filmmakers, critics, scholars, and other leading professionals, as they explore concerns around film history, production, authorship, representation, and prospects of African women’s cinema.
Film screenings will occur at various venues across and beyond London, including BFI Southbank, Rio Cinema, The Lexi Cinema, Riverside Studios, Utopia Cinema in Sheffield, Watershed in Bristol, and Plymouth Arts Cinema. There will also be screenings at EbonyLife Cinema in EbonyLife Place London, a newly opened cultural hub dedicated to Black and African films.
Film Africa 2026 opens with the screening of Ben’imana (2026), a Rwandan drama by Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo set in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, exploring trauma, justice, memory and reconciliation. The film follows Vénéranda, a genocide survivor dedicated to helping others rebuild their lives, whose commitment to reconciliation is challenged when she discovers her daughter is pregnant. The film won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making Dusabejambo the first Rwandan director to premiere a film in the festival’s official selection.
The second day of the festival includes screenings of Sudanese-Russian filmmaker Suzannah Mirghani’s Cotton Queen (2025), which follows a Sudanese teenager who confronts a businessman’s genetically engineered cotton plan, awakening to her own strength; and Moroccan filmmaker Meryem Benm’Barek’s Behind The Palm Trees (2025), a Tangier-set romantic drama which follows Mehdi, a young Moroccan man whose relationship with Selma is disrupted after he meets and becomes enticed by the luxury of a well-to-do French woman. Cotton Queen premiered in the festival’s Critics’ Week programme at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, while Behind the Palm Trees had its world premiere at the 22nd edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Films scheduled for screening on the third day include The Critics and Pietra Brettkelly’s Crocodile (2026), a New Zealand-Nigeria documentary co-production focused on the rise of a group of inventive teenage sci-fi filmmakers from a Northern Nigerian community; and Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s In a Whisper (2026), which follows Lilia’s return to Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral, resulting in the exposure of family secrets and confrontation of her identity among three generations of women. Both Crocodile and In a Whisper screened at the 2026 Berlin International Film Festival. While Crocodile also screened at the Tribeca Festival, where it won the Viewpoints Award, In a Whisper is part of the programme for the ongoing BFI London Film Festival.
On the fourth day of Film Africa 2026, screenings will include Nigerian filmmaker Daniel Oriahi’s The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives (2026), an adaptation of Lola Shoneyin’s book of the same title, which is about a wealthy patriarch’s fragile household unravelling when the youngest of his four wives fails to conceive. The feature will be followed by a short-film programme composed of Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Alpha Diallo’s Souls Of Fouta (2026), Malagasy filmmaker Franco Clerc’s Silent Waves (2025), Egyptian director Khaled Moeit’s Zizou (2025) and Franco-Burkinabè Fabien Dao’s The Sand Dog (2025).
Other screening highlights across the festival include French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis’s Dao (2026), Libyan-American filmmaker Jihan K’s My Father and Qaddafi (2025), Congolese filmmaker Rafiki Fariala’s Congo Boy (2026), Nigerian filmmakers Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa (2026), South African filmmakers Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar’s Variations On a Theme (2026), and Kenyan filmmaker Vincho Nchogu’s One Woman One Bra (2025), alongside additional short-film programmes.
Rounding off the festival’s film showcase is Nigerian-born, London-based filmmaker Olive Nwosu’s Lady (2026), which is set in Lagos where a cab driver joins a fearless collective of sex workers, discovering sisterhood, resilience and liberation. The feature film had its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is also part of the programme for the ongoing BFI London Film Festival.
Among the highlights is the retrospective screening and celebration of Tunisian filmmaker, historian, critic and scholar Ferid Boughedir at the Ciné Lumière. Boughedir is widely recognised for his contributions to African and Arab cinema, with his seminal works including pioneering documentaries, Caméra d’Afrique (1983), which examines the development of African cinema, and Caméra Arabe (1987), focused on cinema in the Arab world.
Reflecting on this year’s festival, Stella Okuzu FRSA, CEO and Director of the Royal African Society, described Film Africa as a meeting point for the past, present and future of African cinema. “Through an extraordinary collection of films and archival material, carefully curated by our curator Keith Shiri and his team, we are celebrating Africa’s cinematic heritage while shining a spotlight on the bold, diverse and exciting future of African storytelling,” she was quoted as saying.
Film Africa 2026 runs from 23rd October to 1st November, 2026. Full details of the schedule and screening programme are available on the festival’s official platform.