African Films Feature At the 2025 Sundance Film Festival

A slate of African films are set to feature at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival scheduled to run from 23rd January – 2nd February, marking a significant milestone for the continent. With this development, the global film festival will spotlight and celebrate African storytelling and cinema in a manner that is unfathomable. Leading the continent’s filmmaking exploits are outstanding features from Kenya and Sudan.

The selected films represent the heterogenous identities and diverse narratives that stem from the continent. They are also indicative of the growing reception of African cinema on the global stage.

Kenya’s How To Build A Library and Sudan’s Khartoum will lead Africa at the big occasion, demonstrating the continent’s dynamic and evolving film industry. Kenya, which is the filmmaking powerhouse of East Africa, boasts a rich cultural history and powerful narratives. On the contrary, in the past decade, Sudan has experienced a revival of its film industry, with her filmmakers deriving inspiration from the sociopolitical backdrop.

Kenya’s How To Build A Library explores issues of memory, knowledge and the preservation of culture. The story follows a group of young people who decide to build a public library in their local community with the hope of protecting the endangered oral traditions of the society.

Directed by the ingenious filmmaker Hassan al-Fayoumi, Sudan’s Khartoum delves into the lives of three persons based in Sudan’s capital city Khartoum, whose lives are unexpectedly interconnected by different events amidst political unrest. The drama film explores themes such as survival, resilience, and the identity crisis of a nation plagued with sociopolitical instability.

Apart from Sudan and Kenya, a few other African nations are represented at Sundance. These are Where the Wind Comes From (Tunisia), B(l)ind The Sacrifice (South Africa), Deadlock (Algerian-French), and Entre le Feu et le Clair de Lune (Ivory Coast-US).

Organized by the Sundance Institute, the Sundance Film Festival is the largest independent film festival in the United States. The festival takes place in January every year across different values in Utah—Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort.

A major feature of the festival is its awards ceremony, which recognizes excellence in films of different categories. Previous award winners include Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Chinonye Chukwu’s Clemency, Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia, C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, and Jamie Dack’s Palm Trees and Power Lines.