Sankara’s Orphans is screening for $15 on May 21 as part of New York African Film Festival.

The 29th New York African Film Festival is presented under the banner Visions of Freedom: tuning into diverse and interconnected notions of freedom pertinent to Africa, the diaspora, and the world at large. This year’s festival presents programs that recall activisms past and usher in new anthems of the future to embrace a united front for liberation and expression.

Sankara’s Orphans

Géraldine Berger, 2021, Burkina Faso & France, 84m

French, Spanish, Moore and Lyele with English subtitles

In 1986, 600 orphans and rural children from Burkina Faso were sent to Cuba with the mission of learning a trade so they could come back and develop their country, which was undergoing a revolution. But after the assassination of Burkinabè President Thomas Sankara in 1987, the liquidation of the revolution by Blaise Compaoré, and the end of the Cold War, how were they to return, to build themselves, to exist? The narrative of this utopia of Red Africa and the epic memories of these children are mixed with archival images, sometimes reddened by the sand, the heat, and the wind, sometimes faded, almost disappearing, thus giving us a glimpse into the reminiscences of their revolutionary youth. Co-presented with The Africa Center.

A Q&A with Géraldine Berger will follow the screening.