The Austin Film Society Announces the Third Annual Presentation of the Pan African Film Festival in Texas
June 25, 2025, AUSTIN, TX— From July 31–August 3, the Austin Film Society will present its third annual Austin film series with the Los Angeles-based Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF). PAFF leadership will return to Austin to present a curated selection of acclaimed shorts and feature-length films from their February 2025 festival alongside special invitation titles and panel discussions on immigration and impactful storytelling. Many of these films are premieres screening for the first time in Texas or in Austin. The full festival lineup is included below.
For more information on AFS’s presentation with PAFF, click here or visit austinfilm.org/paff-2025. Full festival passes are available here, and AFS members will receive additional discounts on tickets.
To watch the trailer for PAFF’s 2025 program in Austin, click here.
The opening-night film selected to kick off this year’s PAFF program with AFS is Move Ya Body: The Birth of House directed by Elegance Bratton (dir. The Inspection), exploring the story of producer Vince Lawrence and house music’s Chicago roots. The film will be followed by a reception in the lobby of AFS Cinema with complimentary light bites. The program’s 2025 closing-night selection will be Sun Ra: Do the Impossible, a biographical documentary about the life of the pioneering jazz musician, philosopher and poet. This year’s program also features a selection of short films and a panel discussion titled “Black Immigrants: Telling Our Stories & Visioning the Future” on August 2. The event will include three shorts (Boat People, Cartes and Mexico is Hell for Black Migrants) followed by a discussion exploring the topics of displacement, migration and racial capitalism as they pertain to Black immigrants. The screening and panel are sponsored by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI).
PAFF is an annual, LA-based film and arts festival that brings together creatives across the African diaspora to celebrate their work in one place. PAFF is also the largest Black film and arts festival and Black History Month activation in the US. PAFF leadership will be in attendance for the Austin presentation, including General Manager Asantewa Olatunji, Assistant General Manager Linda Bronson-Abbott, Senior Programmer Melissa Randle and Director of Special Operations J’Tasha St. Cyr along with Executive Director Oduduwa Olatunji to introduce the films.
On August 3 at 4 p.m., PAFF will also participate in a free panel discussion at Austin Public called “The Power of Story: Impacting Change Through Film,” about how creatives can use storytelling as a tool to ignite change. The panel will feature local filmmakers, including Ya’Ke Smith (Chairperson of the AFS Filmmaker Advisory Committee and associate professor in the department of radio-television-film at UT Austin), in a discussion moderated by AFS’s Director of Community Education Rakeda L. Ervin. Following the panel, guests will be invited to stay for a mixer to continue the afternoon’s conversation.
More information on the PAFF panel can be found here or by visiting austinfilm.org/paff-2025.
This project is supported in part by the City of Austin Economic Development Department and a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
PAFF 2025 Programming Lineup
THURSDAY, JULY 31
Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, directed by Elegance Bratton
7 PM | AFS Cinema
In the chaos of Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park, a teenage usher named Vince Lawrence witnessed the fiery backlash against disco — a sound that defined freedom and pride. Undeterred by the hostility, Vince used his earnings to buy a synthesizer, setting in motion a journey that would change music forever. Venturing into the underground sanctuary of The Warehouse, where Frankie Knuckles spun revolutionary sounds, Vince teamed up with Jesse Saunders to form Z Factor, a scrappy collective of visionaries who captured the pulse of Chicago’s underground on wax. Their track, “On and On,” became the first recorded house music anthem, sparking a movement that transformed a local DIY culture into a global phenomenon. From those gritty Chicago streets to festival stages worldwide, Vince’s story is an electrifying testament to how a dream, born in the ashes of rejection, ignited a genre that continues to unite and liberate people across the globe.
Followed by an opening-night reception in the AFS Cinema lobby for all attendees of the film.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 1
Double Header: Born in the Struggle and Dying to Vote, various directors
6 PM | AFS Cinema
Dying to Vote (31m), dir. Loki Mulholland
Voting is so vital to American democracy that some will die for that right while others will kill to keep them from having it. This is a long-view commentary recalling the history of voting in the United States and how, during Reconstruction, Black people were able to achieve high office in the U.S. government through the exercise of their voting rights. But due to intimidation, voter manipulation, and even murder, Black people became disenfranchised, thus depriving them of representation until the mid-20th century. Included in the manipulation to disenfranchise Black voters is the January 6, 2021, Insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, which at its heart was an attempt to suppress the power of the Black and Brown vote. Centering on the story of Vernon Dahmer, a civil rights leader in Mississippi who was killed for trying to register African Americans to vote, Dying to Vote features Vernon’s son, Dennis Dahmer, Congressman Bennie Thompson, the Chairman of the January 6th Committee, with narration by acclaimed actor Gregory Alan Williams.
Born in the Struggle (60m), dir. Kamasi Hill
Born in the Struggle delves into the lives of children born to 1960s and ’70s Black Power activists, including Ras J. Baraka, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Fred Hampton Jr. Through personal accounts, the documentary explores how their parents’ revolutionary commitments shaped their childhoods and inspired their own activism. Against a backdrop of shifting cultural landscapes, it examines their challenges, resilience, and the role of hip-hop in naming and proclaiming the Black experience for a new generation.
The Man Died, directed by Awam Amkpa
8:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Based on the harrowing prison memoir by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, The Man Died is a powerful tale of resistance, courage, and the unyielding human spirit. Set against the backdrop of Nigeria’s civil war, the film chronicles Soyinka’s imprisonment without trial by a brutal military regime determined to silence his voice. Through solitary confinement, torture, and deprivation, Soyinka’s resolve to fight against tyranny and injustice only grows stronger. Interwoven with flashbacks to his earlier life as a writer and activist, the film reveals the profound inner strength and unbreakable spirit that drive Soyinka’s resistance. As he documents his experiences on scraps of paper smuggled out of his cell, his writings become a beacon of hope and a call to action for others living under oppression. The Man Died is not just a personal story but a universal testament to the enduring power of truth and the necessity of standing up against tyranny. It is a poignant reminder that, in the face of oppression, silence is not an option, and the human spirit can never truly be extinguished. Stars Wale Ojo and Sam Dede.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2
Black Immigrants: Telling Our Stories & Visioning the Future, short films by various directors followed by panel discussion
12:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Boat People, dir. Al’Ikens Plancher
Inspired by true events, a Haitian refugee fights to survive the inhumane conditions at Guantánamo Bay.
Cartes, dir. Rhym Guissé
Immigrant Aliyah wants to volunteer at the Environmental Justice Society (EJS), the organization that helped her family’s village in Mali. She finds herself an outlier within the trendy white environmental activism world, juxtaposed against her coworkers’ ego-driven activism. Her dreams of giving back turn into a nightmare when her boss asks for proof of employment documents. Panicked, undocumented Aliyah tries to find a way to come up with proof of her citizenship, risking her family’s safety and everything they’ve built.
Mexico is Hell for Black Migrants, dir. Tommy Franklin
In the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the Mexico/Guatemala border, thousands of Black migrants seeking asylum face anti-Blackness in the city of Tapachula, Mexico. The US has extended its borders to South and Central America by enforcing policies that trap Black Migrants from a dozen countries in horrific conditions as they attempt to journey to the US.
Screening and panel sponsored by BAJI (Black Alliance for Just Immigration).
Legacy: The De-Colonized History of South Africa, directed by Tara Erica Moore
3:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Thirty years after the fall of apartheid, South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world. From South African filmmaker Tara Moore comes a landmark documentary that reveals the deep-rooted forces of inequality still shaping the nation today.
With unprecedented access, the film follows the grandson of the so-called “Architect of Apartheid” as he grapples with his family’s role in one of history’s most brutal regimes. His deeply personal reckoning exposes apartheid’s endurance today, both systemically and psychologically.
A definitive chronicle of South Africa, Legacy is more than a historical investigation — it’s a vital call to confront history in order to reimagine a more just future.
Sun Ra: Do the Impossible, directed by Christine Turner
7:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Firelight Films’ Sun Ra documentary reveals jazz pioneer Sun Ra’s experience as a Black man growing up in Jim Crow America, the musical and philosophical currents that shaped him, and how, more than 30 years after his death, his ideas, music, and performances continue to inspire.
Herman Poole Blount was born on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, and departed this earth on May 30, 1993, as Sun Ra. Along the way, he became a conscientious objector, legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra, forged a vision of a Black Space Age future, created a big band that toured the world and continues to do so to this day, wrote over 1,000 jazz compositions, issued more than 125 self-produced records, pioneered the use of electronic keyboards, and published volumes of broadsheets and poetry.
Sun Ra reached back in time to ancient Egypt to claim civilization as Black and fused it with the dawn of the Space Age to assert Blackness as the very nature of the “omniverse.” Compelling and strange, he claimed to have been “teleported” to Saturn, where he was told that the world would descend into chaos and that he must speak through music. Though his “Earth departure day” may have occurred more than three decades ago, his influence continues to grow with each successive generation.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3
The Power of Story: Impacting Change Through Film, panel discussion and mixer
4 PM | Austin Public — Studio One
Join us for an inspiring conversation with filmmakers, writers, and change makers who use storytelling as a tool to spark dialogue and shift perspectives. Discover how film and impactful stories can entertain, empower, and ignite change.
About PAFF
Established in 1992 by Hollywood veterans Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Lethal Weapon), the late Ja’Net DuBois (Good Times), and Ayuko Babu (Executive Director), the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has remained dedicated to the promotion of Black stories and images through the exhibition of film, visual art, and other creative expression. For over 30 years, PAFF has been the international beacon for the African diaspora film and arts communities.
About Austin Film Society
Founded in 1985 by filmmaker Richard Linklater, AFS creates life-changing opportunities for filmmakers, catalyzes Austin and Texas as a creative hub, and brings the community together around great film. AFS supports filmmakers from all backgrounds towards career leaps, encouraging exceptional artistic projects with grants and support services. AFS operates Austin Studios, a 20-acre production facility, to attract and grow the creative media ecosystem. Austin Public, a space for our city’s diverse mediamakers to train and collaborate, provides many points of access to filmmaking and film careers. The AFS Cinema is an ambitiously programmed repertory and first run arthouse with broad community engagement. By hosting premieres, local and international industry events, and the Texas Film Awards, AFS shines the national spotlight on Texas filmmakers while connecting Austin and Texas to the wider film community. AFS is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. More at austinfilm.org.
