Blog: Film festivals

The African Film Festival focuses on films made by Africans and those in the African Diaspora. Additionally, we showcase films shot in Kisumu, Kenya – an exciting birth of local stories being told through the medium of film.

Our first festival was opened by the RT. Honourable Prime Minister of Uganda, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, and the Governor of Kisumu Kenya, his Excellence Professor Peter Nyong'o (also father of Oscar-winning actress, Lupita Nyong'o). We also welcomed the Ugandan High Commissioner to Canada, Kisumu's Minister of Arts, Culture and Tourism, and filmmakers from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, the UK, Canada, and the US. Since then, we have continued to welcome filmmakers and film lovers from around the world!

In 2019, we were excited to open the festival with Bed of Thorns, Uganda's first movie made with an all-female crew, and to welcome Artist in Residence Giggs Kgonamotse Kgole, one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 young South Africans, whose work “God Ke Mama” was the catalogue cover of the 10th Anniversary Young Masters Art Prize in London.

During COVID, we were forced to present scaled down versions of the festival, but we returned in full force in December, 2022 for our 5th edition of the festival, during which we held two open forums, multi-day workshops on production design and sales/distribution, three days of screenings and a gala awards event, and welcomed the Kenyan Film Commission, Kenyan Film Classification Board and the Kisumu Minister of Arts, Culture and Sport. In 2023 we welcomed Kenyan actor Charles Ouda, who came to present an award and speak with the kids who came to watch our world premiere of episodes 3 and 4 of Twende, in which he starred. Our guest of honour was her excellency, Kisumu First Lady Dorthy Nyong'o, who also happens to be the mother of Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o.

All festival programmers are Africans. Given our focus on filmmakers, each submission is watched by at least two people. If they disagree, a third programmer will review the film. Then, the top scoring films are considered by the programming team as a whole. Our goal is to be as fair as possible, giving every submission a reasonable opportunity to be selected. With that said, in 2023, each film was watched by at least 5 programmers.