The New Africa Film Festival will be held in Washington, DC from March 13th to 26th, marking its 22nd edition with one of the most extensive and internationally distinguished lineups ever.
Organized by AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center and the Africa World Now Project, the festival will screen 25 films from 18 countries across the African continent and its global diaspora. The full schedule will be announced on February 18th.
This year’s festival opens with My Father’s Shadow, the feature debut of Nigerian-British director Akinola Davis Jr. The film made history as Nigeria’s first film to be selected at Cannes, winning the Camera d’Or special award and later being selected as the official UK entry for the 2026 Academy Awards. Starring real-life brothers Godwin Egbo and Chibuike Marvelous Egbo alongside Sope Dilisu, the film explores memories of Nigeria’s first post-coup election day, fatherhood and political transition.
Festival highlights include “The Eyes of Ghana,” a tribute to Ghanaian cameraman Chris Hesse, directed by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot. “Cotton Queen” is the first full-length story directed by Sudanese woman Susanna Mirghani. and the South African apartheid-era drama “The Laundry,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Several major Cannes films are also featured, including Tomas Nijol’s Untamable, Queer Palm Award winner Little Sister, and Morad Mostafa’s debut film Aisha Can’t Fly Away.
The lineup also includes multiple official Oscar productions from Egypt, Morocco, Sweden, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Tuesday, February 17th
Immersive Enterprise Laboratory releases “The Science of Animation” documentary
Immersive Enterprise Laboratories (IEL) is unveiling a new approach to animated storytelling with the release of the short documentary “The Science of Animation.” The short documentary is currently available on the company’s website and social channels.
Filmed during a live pop-up experience at the Fleet Science Center, this documentary provides visitors with access to a fully operational animation production environment. Over the course of a weekend, participants stepped inside a working animation pipeline where story development, character performance, and world-building evolve simultaneously.
The Science of Animation focuses on IEL’s integrated creative system, which differs from traditional linear pipelines. Rather than separating story, performance, and environment into successive phases, IEL allows these elements to evolve together in real time.
“This exhibit proves that the animation process itself can change,” said IEL co-founder Blake Baxter. “We’re not just trying to speed up traditional pipelines; we’re asking what happens when stories, characters, and worlds evolve simultaneously in the same space. Giving creators the ability to experience their ideas instantly expands the creative ceiling.”
This pop-up features an HP Z workstation with an AMD Threadripper CPU, NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell graphics, Unreal Engine, Adobe Substance 3D tools, Maxon Cinema 4D and ZBrush, Xencelabs drawing hardware, a Vicon motion capture system, JALI Research facial animation, and real-time sound and camera from Rebound Sound Company and Peel Software Development. High-performance hardware and software, including systems, were on display.
Visitors followed Ruby, IEL’s original character and host, as she scanned physical materials, captured performances, and saw their contributions instantly reflected in the animated world.
“For decades, animation has been built around delay and separation,” said IEL co-founder Daniel Urbach. “We wanted to show that those boundaries aren’t necessary. When performance, environment, and cinematography happen together, storytelling becomes something you experience while creating it. It changes the shape of the story and who participates.”
