Pan African Film Festival: Experience A New Story of Imagination

For more than 30 years, the Pan African Film Festival or PAFF has been the international beacon for the African diaspora film and arts communities. As the critically acclaimed largest Black film and arts festival and Black History Month activation in the United States, PAFF features filmmakers, artists and unique craftspeople from more than six continents to Los Angeles annually, to showcase their pivotal work and talent. 

PAFF has become the quintessential global celebration of Pan-African cultures.

Every year PAFF continues to showcase upwards of 200 new high-quality Black films from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, the South Pacific, Canada and increasingly, Asia. PAFF’s panels and workshops showcase rare cinematic gems followed by filmmaker Q&As. The festival is an Oscar-qualifying festival for animation and live-action films.

Opening Night: Hosted by Danny Glover and Thomas Q. Jones, features Chevalier at Directors’ Guild of America.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. is Chevalier with Samara Weaving as Marie-Josephine, Lucy Boynton as Marie Antoinette and Minnie Driver as La Guimard. Inspired by the incredible true story of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. The son of an enslaved African woman and a French plantation owner, Bologne (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) in a tour de force performance rises to improbable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, complete with an ill-fated love affair and a falling out with Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) and her court.

Time: 5:30 p.m. Red Carpet arrivals, 7 p.m. screening, Feb. 9

Venue: Directors’ Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles

Docs

Featured documentaries this year make up a small list, so far, yet offer a range of intriguing subject matter from history and music to health and biopiracy. 

They include: Black Fire: The Documentary

In 1975, Black Fire Records was established to amplify and produce culturally relevant jazz and progressive original music for the Washington, D.C. community. This small, independent label would go on to revolutionize the music business, nationally and internationally.

#BlackboyJoyGone

A hybrid documentary by and for Black men on mental health, sexual trauma and finding strength through brotherhood. Blending interviews, poetry, dance and storytelling, it captures the lives, realities, and the hopeful perspectives of men from across the UK. 

Life With CTE: A Warren Sapp Story

NFL Hall of Fame and Super Bowl Champion, Warren Sapp takes us inside his mind while living with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, the ongoing brain disease initiated by hard hits and concussions. This short documentary pushes the limits of the reality of contact sports and how we’ve overlooked the consequences of blunt force trauma from tackling and forceful impact. Top CTE researcher Chris Nowinski and ex-NFL player Najeh Davenport, also affected with CTE, present the case for preventing CTE from happening.

Birthing Justice

America’s medical inequities have turned giving birth into a battlefield for Black women and their babies. Birthing Justice flips that narrative, addressing the issues fueling the maternal health crisis and advocating for birthing equity for Black women. Exploring this national epidemic in Washington, D.C., Georgia, Missouri, and California, the film centers on the women’s lived experiences affected by current policies and the birthing advocates and policymakers at the forefront of fixing a broken system to transform the future, one birth at a time.

When I Get Grown – Reflections of a Freedom Rider

Trauma experienced by seven-year-old Bernard Lafayette set him on a course to become a civil rights legend and change the course of a nation. Rev. Lafayette joined the movement with his college roommate, the late Rep. John Lewis

Iyeza Medicine Biopiracy

Hitting Africa and the developing world like a tsunami, the biochemical industry is frantically filing patents on ‘newly discovered’ bio resources without compensating the indigenous people who discovered and developed the knowledge for decades.

• Find a listing of all PAFF’s featured films here: https://paffreimagined23.eventive.org/films
• Check out PAFF’s Art Fest Calendar here: https://www.paff.org/artfest-calendar/

Adding to the creative spirit of this event, the festival brings you the PAFF LOL! Comedy Show. The event pays respects to everything Black comedy comes from and where it’s headed. Check the PAFF website for more information. 

And each year, PAFF presents the “Spoken Word” highlighting America’s hottest wordsmiths in one of the most popular poetry slams and showcases.

Time: 6:30 to 9 p.m., Feb.18

Cost: $20 

Venue: Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Crenshaw Mall Bridge

Pan African Film Festival

Time: Various times, Feb. 9 to 20

Cost: $65 PAFFPORT includes seven tickets for regular screenings. Pass can be used for up to two tickets per screening, to $545

Details: https://www.paff.org/events

Venue: Cinemark XD (Extreme Digital Cinema), Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 3650 MLK Blvd., Los Angeles