Media Making an Impact
Through the Lens of Global Africa
Felicia Appenteng, AAI President & CEO, and Mahen Bonetti, Founder of the African Film Festival and recipient of AAI's 2022 Arts & Culture Award
The Africa-America Institute partnered with the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) to co-present a series of films during the 33rd African Film Festival in New York City. NYAFF is led by the pioneering Mahen Bonetti, who AAI honored for her extraordinary leadership and cultural stewardship in 2022.
The festival ran from May 1 to May 30, 2026, at Film at Lincoln Center, Maysles Cinema, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. We curated a selection of films, showcased below, which encapsulate the dynamism, creativity, power, and purpose that we see across Global Africa through the rich tapestry of filmmaking.
The NYAFF is a cherished cultural institution and we were honored to present its Founder and Executive Director, Mahen Bonetti, with the Ambassador for African Cinema Award at our 38th Awards Gala. We’re proud to continue building our relationship with African cinema through meaningful partnerships such as this.
The Eyes of Ghana
Directed by Ben Proudfoot | 2025
The Eyes of Ghana captures the story of photographer Chris Hesse, who served as the personal photographer to the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah; now in his nineties, he seeks to preserve his volume of vital independence-era materials.
Kwame Nkrumah, Former President of Ghana, and Horace Mann Bond, Co-founder of AAI
The Africa-America Institute finds itself at the nexus of Ghana’s freedom story, with our founder, Horace Mann Bond, serving as President Nkrumah’s mentor and the Institute organizing key visits from Ghana’s leaders to the United States. We see The Eyes of Ghana as a medium of liberatory education for our Global African community, who will experience the power of the camera in capturing true and empowering history.
Felicia Appenteng, AAI President & CEO, speaking at the NYAFF screening of “The Eyes of Ghana”
AMÍLCAR
Directed by Miguel Eek | 2025
Amilcar tells the remarkable story of Guinea-Bissau’s fight for freedom from colonization. AAI has a special history in Guinea- Bissau, and with the subject of this film in particular: Amilcar Cabral.
Recognizing Cabral’s immense contributions to transforming the lives of his people, Lincoln University (where AAI co-founder Horace Mann Bond had previously served as President) awarded him with an honorary doctorate on October 15, 1972, a few months before his sterling life was cut short through assassination. During his speech at Lincoln, Cabral emphasized that,“the effectiveness of cultural resistance of the people who, when they are subjected to political domination and economic exploitation, find their own cultural acts as a bulwark in preserving their identity.”
Students in Guinea-Bissau enrolled in AAI's Development Training Program for Portuguese-Speaking Africa
At the time of Cabral’s visit to America, apparently his last, AAI had begun talks with leaders of liberation movements from Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau to support the manpower needs of the emerging Portuguese-speaking independent countries. When AAI’s Development Training for Portuguese-speaking Africa scholarship was finally launched in 1975, many of the beneficiaries were Amilcar Cabral’s students/protégés.
I Am Black, I Am Beautiful
Directed by Sabrina Onana | 2023
The final film, in which Felicia Appenteng, AAI’s President & CEO, moderated a panel discussion, is titled I Am Black, I Am Beautiful. At AAI, we create opportunities for healing and repair through storytelling and education. This film shows how through community and storytelling, we can heal through connecting to our history and experience ourselves outside of the European imagination.
Cover of AAI's 1962 Africa Report featuring three female students at Howard University
In her opening remarks, Felicia spoke about the importance of investing in Global African talent:
“We believe that art is a portal for liberation — and that conviction connects directly to the heart of what director Sabrina Onana has created here. This film gives twelve Afro-French women the space to speak, be seen, and be heard — sharing their journeys of doubt, resilience, and self-acceptance as they reckon with hair, beauty, and identity across African and Western worlds.
That act of bearing witness — of insisting that Black women's experiences deserve to be named, documented, and celebrated — is itself a form of liberatory education. It echoes the belief that has anchored AAI's work since our founding in 1953: that when African people are empowered to define themselves on their own terms, they can return to their own source of strength and advance on their own terms.”
Felicia Appenteng, AAI President & CEO, speaking with film director Sabrina Onana at the NYAFF