65th Street Construction On Sale Now NYAFF 2008 Program Overview Special Events Africa Paradis African Slave Trades Awaiting for Men Baa Baa Black Girl Black Business Brothers in Arms Bunny Chow Cuba:... Ezra Goodbye Mothers Independently Guinea Iron Ladies of Liberia Juju Factory Namibia: The Struggle... Shoot the Messenger This is My Africa Romanian Cinema IN: Phyllis and Harold Gr. Scr.: Mountaintop... YFF: Le Boucher GS: The Kid Brother SE: Ned Rorem Met: La Fille du Régiment 1968: Intl. Perspective SE: Joachim Trier SE: Jerry Schatzberg SE: Robert Frank Ongoing Programs Film Comment Selects Young Friends of Film Green Screens Browse Calendar Past Programs Furman Gallery Theater Rental Theater Information Press Office Sign up for FSLC ReelNews

Baa Baa Black Girl screening with Bushman’s Secret Series: The 15th Annual New York African Film Festival [April 9-April 15] Baa Baa Black Girl US Premiere Gül Büyükbese Muyan, Turkey, 2007, 47m. In Turkish Although all the countries in the Muslim world have abolished slavery, including Saudi Arabia in 1966, the social suffering and the discrimination suffered by the slaves’ descendants continue to have an effect today. This film tells the history of the dark-skinned Mustafa Olpak, whose African grandfather was bought as a domestic slave by an Ottoman Turkish family and thus came to Istanbul as a result of the Kemalist revolution. While his grandfather may have been legally a free man, he was still was unable to feed his children, and so he gave up one of his daughters for adoption to an unknown family. Movingly, Mustafa tells how his father rediscovered the sister who had once disappeared into adoption. In 2006, Mustafa Olpak organized the first meeting of Afro-Turks with similar histories. Winner of the UNESCO Jury award Breaking The Chains’ Prize. screening with Bushman’s Secret US Premiere Rehad Desai, South Africa, 2006, 64m. In English, Ju’hoan and Afrikaans When South African filmmaker Rehad Desai travels to the Kalahari to investigate global interest in ancient Bushmen knowledge, he meets Jan van der Westhuizen, a fascinating Khomani San traditional healer. Jan’s struggle to live close to nature is hampered by centuries of colonial exploitation of the San Bushmen and of their land. Unable to survive as they once did hunting and gathering, the Khomani now live in a state of poverty that threatens to see the last of this community forever. One plant could make all the difference: Hoodia, a cactus used by Bushmen for centuries to suppress appetite, has caught the attention of a giant pharmaceutical company as a weight-loss option for westerners. Bushman’s Secret features breathtaking footage of the Kalahari landscape, and exposes us to a world where modernity collides with ancient ways, at a time when each has, strangely, come to rely on the other.

Buy Tickets Wed Apr 9: 1:30 Sun Apr 13: 3:30