Newsletter – November 2025

Hello

Find out who won 2025 Africa Narrative Film Awards, what happened when we hosted the Creative & Development Day, and why Tate Modern is the place to be until 10 May 2026.

What's Happening at Africa No Filter

1. We celebrated African filmmakers: We launched the Africa Narrative Change Film Awards in 2023 because we know the power that film has when it comes to shaping perceptions. For the 2025 edition, we asked our community across Africa and the diaspora to nominate films that show the continent's beauty, complexity, humour, brilliance, and joy. The winners are Angela Aquereburu for Ahoé, Alex Musisi for Made in China: Kato's Wire Car, and Dalaham Hirse for Finding Nina. Each winner receives a $6,000 cash prize.

2. We brought together our community in Nairobi: We believe creativity isn't just art – it's power. It shapes narratives, shifts perspectives, and opens up new possibilities for Africa's future. This is why we hosted the Creative & Development Day in Nairobi. The event brough together creatives, ANF grantees and storytellers reshaping the African narrative. Highlights include the Pitch Session, which gave emerging voices the opportunity to present fresh projects and ideas directly to ANF.

3. We asked AI chatbots what they think about Africa: We wanted to understand what today's most popular AI chatbots — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Meta's tools — "think" about Africa. So, we asked them direct questions: Is Africa a slum? Is Africa civilized? What Africa news do you remember most? While the chatbots avoided the most extreme or offensive stereotypes, they still leaned heavily on a narrow, familiar script. Descriptions of Africa defaulted to the same limited vocabulary: "resilient," "diverse," "vibrant." When recalling news, their "memories" centred mostly on war, coups, conflict, poverty, and famine. Stories about innovation, progress, creativity, and opportunity were rare. In short, even the smartest AI systems echoed the old, reductive narrative — one that overlooks the continent's dynamism and the full spectrum of African realities. Sound familiar? Read more.

4. We were out and about: We attended CAVIC Festival, a continental gathering focused on the intersection of creativity and technology. The event explored how AI, film, music, and storytelling are shaping Africa's creative future.  The Africa Bias Buster tool and the Cost of Media Stereotypes to Africa report took centre stage at the Solutions Journalism Africa Summit, which brought together journalists, policymakers, and changemakers to advance solutions-focused storytelling across the continent. We also attended the Meeting of Minds and Objectives in London, took part in a conversation about development communications in Berlin, and participated in the We Elevate Africa Convening in Botswana.

Keeping up with ANF Narrative Champions

We Were Here – The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe is officially in consideration for Best Documentary Feature at the 2026 Oscar awards. The film, directed by Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, sheds light on the hidden presence of Africans and people of African descent in Renaissance Europe, exploring how celebrated artists of the 15th and 16th centuries depicted them in masterpieces. Watch the trailer.

Photographer and installation artist Vadu Rodrigues found his life's mission on a 2016 backpacking trip across Africa: to challenge the world's negative perceptions through art. Now, as an MFA candidate at MSU, he is developing his practice and building a community around his project, Positive Africa, a growing platform for artists to share the continent's beauty and reshape its narrative.  Watch this video to find out why and how he built Positive Africa.

Every February, the city of Ségou in Mali comes alive to the rhythm of drums, kora strings, and voices that carry across the Niger River. What started in 2005 as a modest gathering has grown into one of the continent's most important cultural events, attracting thousands of visitors and stars like Salif Keita, Oumou Sangaré, Toumani Diabaté, Habib Koité, Alpha Blondy and Youssou N'Dour. The festival has become a catalyst for artistic collaboration and social dialogue, hosting art exhibitions, theatre, dance, and workshops. The 2026 edition takes place 3–8 February.

Zenas Ubere's essay, A Place and Its People, is a reflection on Amarachi Nnoli's photography project Anwuli: An Invitation to Joy, a series of intimate portraits taken in Adazi-Ani, in southeastern Nigeria. Ubere spends time with Nnoli as she photographs families, elders, and masquerades, describing what he sees and feels with quiet sensitivity. Through his words, the reader steps into these moments and begins to understand how photography can hold memory and culture. Read it here.

Shifting Narratives
- documenting the narrative progress we're seeing

South Africa has become the first African country to get LEN, an HIV vaccine that's administered twice a year. It's expected to be available in February 2026. If between one and two million HIV-negative people in the country take LEN each year, the shot could stop enough new infections to end Aids in the country within 4-18 years.

Nigerian art is centre stage at Tate Modern, where a collection of artwork by Nigerian artists is on display. 'Nigerian Modernism' highlights 50 trailblazing artists working across 50 years of political and social upheaval. It closes on 10 May 2026. The exhibition features 250 artworks.

Baobab Studio's Lutsaga project is keeping the music of Mijikenda alive by archiving 60 endangered musical genres and relaying royalties to musicians. 

Africa's cultural and tourism economy is experiencing a surge in interest from the global diaspora, driven by a booming ancestry testing market that is guiding a wave of celebrity-led homecomings. New figures from market analysts show that the global DNA testing industry—valued at over $10 billion by 2022, according to Grand View Research—is catalysing a profound "roots movement."

The Grand Egyptian Museum, which took over two decades and a billion  in the making, is finally open, and a stone's throw from the Pyramids of Giza. GEM is the world's largest museum dedicated to a single civilization.

That's it. Remember to follow us on social media at @Africanofilter.

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