African Film Festival Atlanta

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Research record

African Film Festival Atlanta · Staged record CTL-E-0208 · Entity Depth Program · 624 words · Evidence grade: VERIFIED (canonical master, carried unchanged) · Researched 2026-10-25

The African Film Festival Atlanta's own About page, the master verification source for this record, makes three claims this entry preserves in its own terms: the festival was founded in 2020 by filmmaker and curator Mojisola Sonoiki; it is powered by the African Film & Arts Foundation Inc (AFAF); and it stands as “one of the most influential and fastest-growing African film festivals in the Southeast,” with an emphasis on contemporary African storytelling, technology, and cultural dialogue. CultureTechLens's graph places the festival on its list of African film festivals in the United States and records Sonoiki as its founder. The foundation behind it, AFAF, was itself founded in 2019 — the institutional shell built a year before the festival it powers.

The scale the festival reports for itself is concrete: more than fifty films from more than twenty countries each year, and more than a thousand attendees annually, screening at venues including the Cinefest Theatre and the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta. Its third annual edition, in 2023, ran September 21–25 and October 7–8 in hybrid form, adding Tara Cinemas and Studio Movie Grill in Alpharetta; the foundation reported 150 submissions from 33 countries, from which 65 films were selected, on themes ranging from migration to being African in America. That same year the Georgia House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring AFAF and the festival. The festival is described in reference sources as Georgia's first homegrown African film festival and one of few of its kind in the Southeast.

Sonoiki's longer record frames the founding: before AFFATL she founded the Women of Color Arts & Film Festival (WOCAF), which ran in Atlanta from 2005 to 2012 and received an Atlanta City Council proclamation; her own documentary project Indigo Tongues won Best Documentary Short at the BronzeLens Film Festival. The foundation's year-round arm, Cinema for the Culture, runs screenings and masterclasses — its featured titles have included You Will Die at Twenty, SIRA, and The Apollo. The festival's next edition is already dated: the official call for submissions, published July 14, 2025, sets the 2026 festival for March 26–30, 2026, under the theme “CTRL + CULTURE = AFRICA'S NEXT CINEMA CODE,” carrying the technology emphasis of the founding mission into a sixth year. A small naming note for the record: the foundation's name appears across sources as both “African Film & Arts Foundation” and “African Film and Arts Foundation”; the festival's own site uses the ampersand form, which this record follows.

The 2023 edition shows the programming hand. Its announced themes, per the foundation's own release, ranged across migration, the Chibok girls, being African in America, LGBTQ+ stories from the continent, and child trafficking for war — a slate chosen by a selection committee of film enthusiasts and industry professionals from 150 submissions sent from 33 countries, with 65 films finally screened. Spotlight slots — an opening feature, a centerpiece, and a closing-night feature — structured the run across the Auburn Avenue corridor and the Alpharetta screens. That is the working definition of the festival's stated emphasis: contemporary African storytelling treated not as a sidebar to American film culture but as a cinema with its own centers, its own industries, and its own arguments, screened in a city whose Black cultural institutions — the Auburn Avenue Research Library among them — give it a local root system. The Georgia House resolution of 2023, honoring the foundation and the festival in the third year, is the state's acknowledgment of the same fact. Global Atlanta's events record of the 2023 edition, announcing the festival's spotlight films — an opening feature, a centerpiece, and a closing-night feature — places the September screenings at the Auburn Avenue corridor venues, the same ground the foundation's own history claims.

Sources for this record

• About — African Film Festival Atlanta — African Film Festival Atlanta
  Claims supported: Master verification source: founded 2020 by filmmaker and curator Mojisola Sonoiki; powered by the African Film & Arts Foundation Inc (AFAF); 'one of the most influential and fastest-growing African film festivals in the Southeast'; emphasis on contemporary African storytelling, technology, and cultural dialogue; reported scale of 50+ films from 20+ countries and 1,000+ attendees annually; venues including Cinefest Theatre and the Auburn Avenue Research Library.
• African Film Festival Atlanta Opens Call for Submissions for 2026 Edition — African Film Festival Atlanta
  Claims supported: 2026 edition set for March 26–30, 2026, themed 'CTRL + CULTURE = AFRICA'S NEXT CINEMA CODE'; call for submissions published July 14, 2025.
• African Film and Arts Foundation — Wikipedia
  Claims supported: AFAF founded 2019; festival as Georgia's first homegrown African film festival; Cinema for the Culture program with featured titles You Will Die at Twenty, SIRA, and The Apollo; Sonoiki's founding of WOCAF (2005–2012) and its Atlanta City Council proclamation; Indigo Tongues winning Best Documentary Short at BronzeLens; 2023 Georgia House of Representatives resolution honoring AFAF and the festival.
• The African Film and Arts Foundation Announces Its Third Annual African Film Festival Atlanta — African Film Festival Atlanta
  Claims supported: Third annual edition dates (September 21–25 and October 7–8, 2023), hybrid format, venues including Tara Cinemas and Studio Movie Grill in Alpharetta; 150 submissions from 33 countries and 65 films selected.

Citations

Published October 25, 2026, from the head-verified staged record in the Entity Depth Program (Batches 004–008). Source: CultureTechLens