Three short films, from the Surinamese jungle to a Nevis steel pan yard, headline this year’s New York African Diaspora International Film Festival.
Deep in the Surinamese jungle, three friends are looking for a place that history nearly erased. In Fort Buku, they set out to find the legendary refuge where formerly enslaved freedom fighters held out against Dutch colonial rule. The search turns into something larger, a journey through ancestral memory and the long legacy of resistance.
It is one of three shorts that will screen at the 34th Annual New York African Diaspora International Film Festival, alongside “Old Man River” and “Pan Gyul.”
“Old Man River” turns the camera on the filmmaker’s own father. Eusi Kwayana is 100 years old, a pioneering Guyanese political activist who helped shape the country’s multiethnic political movement. Through his memories and reflections, the documentary covers a century of life given to political change, racial unity, and social justice.
In “Pan Gyul,” the setting shifts to the island of Nevis, where a young girl wants to play the steel pan alongside her brothers and win the admiration of her musician father. Her mother disapproves, and tradition says the instrument isn’t for girls. She practices anyway, and finds her voice through music and perseverance.
The films arrive at a festival built on this kind of range. Now in its 34th year, the 17-day event presents independent cinema, documentaries, and narrative films from around the globe, with a focus on the human experience, diverse perspectives, and the social commentary of people of African descent, Indigenous communities, and people of color.
