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The first Nigerian film ever to screen in Official Selection at Cannes, this prizewinning debut feature from Akinola Davies Jr. is steeped in feeling and lyrical imagery. Bathing the father-son bond in a tender glow, this vibrant coming-of-age tale gathers up precious things amid political tumult.

The first feature from visionary Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty is simply a masterpiece. Winner of the international critics’ award at Cannes, the film’s extraordinary sound design, choppy associative editing, and cool central couple dreaming of escape continues to electrify and inspire.

Instincts both maternal and carnal clatter like shards of glass in a blender in this uncompromising portrait of a woman on the edge from director Lynne Ramsay. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in a frenzied pas de deux, Die My Love inflames the exposed nerves of delirium and desire.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlinale, Mati Diop’s dynamic film brings a dazzling sense of imagination to vital issues of self-determination and restitution. Amplifying voices from beyond the walls of international museums, this spellbinding work redefines the spaces of culture and art.

In this sumptuous masterwork from Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, the outskirts of N’Djamena shimmer with a vivacity that belies brutal prejudices. A powerful ode to the resilience of Chadian women in the face of patriarchal cruelty, this quietly radical drama has all the healing warmth of a mother’s embrace.

A whirlwind mix of DV tapes and 16mm stock, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s singular debut transforms the concrete jungle of New York into a delicate tapestry of emotions. Charting the four seasons of a magnetic young woman unsettled by change, Tendaberry composes an urban symphony in the key of love.

With sharp wit and cathartic intensity, Coralie Fargeat turns toxic beauty culture inside out in her Oscar®-winning latest feature. Powered by a career-best performance from Demi Moore, The Substance fearlessly bulldozes its way into the midnight-movie pantheon and the feminist canon.

In intricate dialogue with the present, Rosine Mbakam’s debut feature also joins hands with the past, feeling for traces of old rituals and lost souls. Over bowls of peeled cassava and pots of blackened fish, the Belgian-Cameroonian director honors the feminine labor that holds communities together.

Exploring Zambia’s little-known culture of “witch camps,” Rungano Nyoni’s debut masterfully combines comedy, tragedy, and mesmerizing visuals. A portrait of a defiant young girl, I Am Not a Witch mounts an acerbic critique of women’s oppression and corruption through tourism, media and superstition.

Bright fabrics interweave with misfortune in this tale of make-do and resilience. Taking the measurements of life in Cameroon with the instruments of fiction for the first time, Rosine Mbakam meshes the truth and amity of her empathetically crafted documentaries into poignant narrative cinema.

Chaos reigns in the riotously funny debut feature from visual artist Martine Syms. With a breakthrough performance from Diamond Stingily, this hallucinatory day-in-the-life of a Black artist is a rollicking satire of art-world pretensions and a rowdy portrayal of sex and drugs in the Internet age.

Writer-director Carmen Emmi handcuffs obsession to power in this confident debut set in ‘90s New York, detecting erotic fixations in homophobic policing. With one furtive eye on William Friedkin’s cult classic Cruising, Plainclothes searches fuzzy videotape surveillance footage for forbidden desire.