Jali Film Weekender 2025 will open with Memory of Princess Mumbi, Swiss-Kenyan director Damien Hauser’s groundbreaking new afro-futurist film fresh from its World Premiere at Venice Film Festival.

This panel brings together creative practitioners, programmers, and community organisers to share how they're ensuring their communities are at the heart of their cultural programming.

In honour of the late Malian director Souleymane Cissé (1940 – 2025) who passed away earlier this year, we are delighted to revisit one of his most seminal works on the big screen,  restored in 2K by Les Films Cissé, the production company of Souleymane Cissé. 

In Cape Town, a group of friends are having a barbecue but the day is disrupted when Ryan’s son goes missing. Ryan’s desperate search for his son sparks a series of incidents, putting a strain on his friendships and marriage.

On a remote volcanic island from which everyone wants to leave, Nana learns to stay. Her mother Nia, who suffers from a mysterious illness, left shortly after her birth.

Participants will engage in reflective discussion and free writing based on responses to the film, utilising collage and carbon transfer printing to build images inspired by their words with themes of dreams and apparitions.

Itto, a young woman from a modest rural background who is slowly adapting to the privileged codes of her husband’s Moroccan family. But when supernatural events plunge the country into a state of emergency, Itto is separated from her husband and new family.

From the metropolis of Khartoum five Sudanese characters: a civil servant, a tea lady, a resistance committee volunteer, and two street boys all in search of freedom, have their stories unexpectedly woven together through animated dreams, street revolutions and a civil war.

A dream-like exploration of womanhood in Sidama, Ethiopia. Amakki, a lyrical journey through Sidama's coffee-growing hills, intimately explores the interconnected lives of two women and two children, celebrating the profound moments of love, loss, and resilience that shape the tapestry of motherhood and womanhood.

This shorts programme invites us into liminal spaces and shifting memories. From Kenya to Haiti, and Rwanda to the UK, these six films explore the complexities of grief and the weight of conflict, while also confronting the dislocations of exile and displacement in the African and diasporic experience.

Jali Film Weekender 2025 will close with Erige Sehiri’s acclaimed Promised Sky (Promis le ciel), which was the opening film for this year’s Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.