Programme
Friday 11 September
Opening Event
Festival Opening
Friday 11 September 2026 18:00–18:10
Welcome to the Watch Africa Film Festival 2026. Opening remarks introducing the festival, programme and weekend ahead.
Feature Film
My Father’s Shadow
18:00 Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 x Reel Futures: My Father’s Shadow + panel discussion
Two young brothers explore Lagos with their estranged father during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, witnessing both the city's magnitude and their father's daily struggles as political unrest threatens their journey home.
Party
Akwaaba Launch Party
Friday 11 September 2026 20:15–21:45 Concourse
Rooted in Ghanaian culture, Akwaaba means “welcome” and embodies the spirit of hospitality, warmth and belonging. The official launch party for Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 welcomes audiences, filmmakers, partners and guests into the festival weekend.
Saturday 12 September
Market
Mansa Market
SAT 12 SEPT & SUN 13 SEPT — 10:00–18:00 — CONCOURSE
Vendors, food, craft and textiles. Inspired by Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage and the international cultural exchange that journey created.
Shorts Programme
WAFF Short Films Finalists 2026
SAT 12 SEPT 10:00 Location: Screen 2
Madame Morel (Raïssa Ioussouf, France) and Do You Know Who I Am? (Paulo Idalécio, Angola), with QR audience voting open throughout.
Food & Discussion
Short Snacks
Sat 12 Sept · 11:30 · Cinema Foyer
After a curated selection of films, enjoy a range of African snacks and discuss what you’ve just watched. Good conversation happens over good food.
Family / PG
Liyana
Sat 12 Sept · 11:30 · Eswatini
Five children in the Kingdom of Eswatini turn past traumas into the tale of a Swazi girl who embarks on a dangerous mission to save her twin brothers.
Feature Film
Luxor
Sat 12 Sept 13:10 — 85 minutes — Screen 2
Zeina Durra · Egypt · 2019. A British aid worker returns to the ancient city of Luxor and crosses paths with a former lover she can’t quite leave behind.
Workshop
African Storytelling Workshop
Saturday 12 September 13:30–14:30 — Cinema Foyer
With Bevin Magama. Guided exercises and creative prompts explore how stories connect us, preserve culture and inspire change. Open to all experience levels.
WAFF x Iris Prize
Dreamers
Saturday 12 September — 14:55 — Screen 2
Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor · UK · 2025. A Nigerian migrant held at a UK asylum removal centre searches for the will to fight the system. Fundraiser screening with a panel discussion.
Workshop
African Dance Workshop
Sat 12 Sept · 15:00 → 15:00–16:00 · First Space
With Idrissa Camara. Drawing on West African dance traditions and contemporary performance, participants of all levels connect with live rhythms and movement.
Animation
Best of Africa 2025
Sat 12 Sept · 16:30 · Screen 1
WAFF x Cardiff Animation Fest x CTIAF. A curated selection of African animation shorts from across the continent and diaspora.
Feature Film
Omen
Sat 12 Sept ·16:50 · 90 min. Screen 2
Baloji · Belgium / DR Congo · 2023. Four people considered witches and sorcerers find a way to help each other escape their fate.
Documentary · WAFF Finalist
Blue Burning
Sat 12 Sept · 18:40 ·90 min. Screen 2
Janet Solomon · South Africa · 2024. A documentary response to the push to maximise South African offshore petroleum potential. QR audience voting open.
Film Screening · 15
Atlantics
Sat 12 Sept · 20:35 · 104 min · Screen 2
In a suburb of Dakar, unpaid construction workers decide to leave the country by ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another. Mati Diop’s Atlantics won the Grand Prix at Cannes.
Sunday 13 September
Documentary · WAFF Finalist
War Child Chose Science
Sun 13 Sept ·10:00pm — 60 Minutes — Screen 2
Päivi Marja Elina Kapiainen-Heiskanen · Finland / Sierra Leone · 2025. The story of Paul Bangura, abducted for 11 months during Sierra Leone’s civil war, who became convinced education was the way forward.
Shorts Programme
CCW x UrbanStamp Showcase
Sun 13 Sept ·11:50 — Screen 2
Diaspora in Wales shorts including The Pocket, Ajoke, Ghost Conversations and Unsent Letter — plus the 24hr Film Challenge winner.
Feature Film
Memory of Princess Mubi
Sun 13 Sept ·12:20 — 80 minutes — Screen 2
Damien Hauser · Kenya / Switzerland · 2023. In 2093, filmmaker Kuve documents a war that resurrected ancient kingdoms — and meets an actress who challenges everything he thought he knew.
Talk
Unmasking the Mask
Sun 13 Sept · 14:30 · Cinema Foyer
With Adeola Dewis. An interactive exploration of the stories, symbolism and traditions behind African masks, and their cultural and creative power.
Documentary · WAFF Finalist
The Banjo Boys
Sun 13 Sept · 16:00 — 76 minutes + 30 minute Q&A
Johan Nayar · Malawi · 2025. The electrifying rise of a Malawian duo who built their own instruments from nothing. Followed by a Q&A.
Workshop
An Interactive Sound & Story Workshop with Suntou Susso
Saturday 12 September · 18:30 · First Space
Suntou Susso. A hands-on session with West African instruments and rhythms — open to all experience levels.
Classic
Black Girl (La Noire de…)
Sun 13 Sept ·18:40 — 70 minutes — Screen 2
Ousmane Sembène · Senegal · 1966. A Senegalese woman takes a job as governess for a French family — and finds her dignity tested by racism.
Ceremony
TUZO Awards Ceremony
13 September — 20:00 — Screen 1.
Awards for Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Short and the Audience Choice Award, chosen in part by your votes across the weekend.
Family Activity
Body and Face Painting Workshop
Sunday 13 September 2026 12:00 First Space 120 minutes
Drop-in face painting with Paskaline for families and festival-goers across the middle of the day.
Venue
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
All festival screenings, workshops and events take place at Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Canton, Cardiff. Screenings run in Cinema 1 and Cinema 2, with workshops in the Cinema Foyer and Dance Studio, and the market on the Concourse.
Follow the Festival
See the latest festival moments, announcements and conversations on Instagram.
THE POCKET 🎬
When the night is over, a rhythm remains. Written and directed by @rosemary.adjoa.dery , The Pocket brings a drummer, a singer and an unexpected presence together through music in the quiet aftermath of an evening. For a moment, they find the pocket, that rare space where rhythm, voice and movement fall perfectly into place.
But every rhythm carries a history.
As the music shifts, so does the space between them. The Pocket explores identity, creativity and the fragile line between inspiration and appropriation, asking what happens when a shared artistic language is reinterpreted and pulled away from its origins.
Screening as part of Diaspora in Wales, our collection of short films by African diaspora filmmakers based in Wales.
📅 Sunday 13 September
⏰ 11:50am
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🎟 Pay What You Can
Walk-in available
Express Your Africa.
Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 starts TODAY.
Three days of African cinema, stories, workshops, music, conversation, creativity and community take over Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff from 11–13 September.
We open tonight with My Father’s Shadow, followed by a panel discussion with Reel Futures, Femi and Emmanuel Bajulaye, before we move into AKWAABA, our official launch party with DJ Samandollar.
Then across Saturday and Sunday, there’s a full weekend of feature films, WAFF finalists, Welsh premieres, animation, workshops, Mansa Market, live performance and our 2026 Awards Ceremony.
Whether you’ve already got your tickets or you’re only just discovering us, there’s still time to join us.
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
📅 11–13 September 2026
🎟 Tickets available now via Chapter + selected workshops/screenings via Eventbrite
Africa’s stories through Welsh screens.
EXPRESS YOUR AFRICA.
ATLANTICS 🎬
A love story haunted by everything that has been left behind.
On the outskirts of Dakar, a group of young construction workers have gone months without pay. With little hope of a future, they leave Senegal by sea. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, who has been promised to another man.
But after they disappear across the Atlantic, something strange begins to happen back home.
Directed by Mati Diop, Atlantics moves between romance, migration, grief and the supernatural, turning a story of young people searching for a better future into something haunting and unexpected.
Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the film also became the first film directed by a Black woman to compete for the Palme d’Or.
📅 Saturday 12 September
⏰ 8:35pm
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🔞 15 | 104 mins
🎟 Tickets via Chapter
THE BANJO BOYS 🎬 | WELSH PREMIERE
From Malawi to stages around the world.
The Banjo Boys follows the extraordinary journey of Madalitso Band, whose homemade instruments, infectious performances and unmistakable sound have taken them from playing on the streets of Malawi to international audiences.
Directed by @johanrnayar, the documentary is a story of music, friendship and creativity, and what can happen when something deeply local travels far beyond where it began.
We’re excited to bring The Banjo Boys to Wales for its Welsh Premiere, where it is also a Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 Documentary Finalist.
And the conversation continues after with Q&A with director Johan Nayar, hosted by Tim TysonShor.
📅 Sunday 13 September
⏰ 4:00pm
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🎬 PG | 76 mins + Director Q&A
🎟 Tickets via Chapter
Come for the film, stay for the story behind it.
Express Your Africa.
BLUE BURNING 🎬
What happens when the search for oil and gas threatens the places people call home?
Blue Burning follows South Africa’s grassroots resistance to offshore oil and gas exploration, documenting one of the country’s largest environmental campaigns.
From coastal communities to activists and organisations fighting to protect the ocean, the documentary explores what is at stake when environmental protection, livelihoods and powerful commercial interests collide.
Blue Burning is a finalist in the Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 Documentary category.
📅 Saturday 12 September
⏰ 6:40pm
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🎬 PG | 90 mins
OMEN 🎬 What happens when the world decides who you are before you’ve had the chance to define yourself?
Omen follows four people accused of witchcraft and sorcery, each navigating the weight of identities, beliefs and expectations imposed upon them.
Moving through a surreal and magical vision of Africa, the film explores family, tradition, otherness and what it takes to break free from the labels placed upon us.
Directed by @baloji , Omen is a visually striking journey where reality, mythology and magic bleed into one another.
📅 Saturday 12 September
⏰ 4:50pm
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🔞 15 | 90 mins
Part of Watch Africa Film Festival 2026
11–13 September
Express Your Africa.
ÀJỌ̀KẸ́ 🎬
What happens when an industry tells you that who you are isn’t enough?
Àjọ̀kẹ́ is an autobiographical short film following a Nigerian model in the UK whose confidence is shaken when a powerful fashion agent rejects her body, beauty and identity.
Forced into a symbolic box of limitation, Àjọ̀kẹ́ confronts what it means to be reduced and misjudged. Through ancestral praise, ritualistic movement and self-remembrance, she begins to reclaim her beauty, power and identity on her own terms.
Screening as part of Diaspora in Wales, a collection of short films by African diaspora filmmakers based in Wales, telling stories of identity, migration, belonging, family and community.
📅 Sunday 13 September
⏰ 11:50am
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🎟 Pay What You Can
Express Your Africa.
MY FATHER’S SHADOW 🎬
We open Watch Africa Film Festival 2026 with My Father’s Shadow, the debut feature from Nigerian-British filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr.
Set against the political unrest surrounding Nigeria’s 1993 presidential election, two young brothers ( @studio_bajulaye ) spend a day travelling through Lagos with their estranged father. What begins as a journey through the city becomes something much more intimate, revealing a father through the eyes of his sons.
Following the film, we’ll open up the conversation with Reel Futures and brothers Femi and Emmanuel Bajulaye, co-directors and stars of Ekun Omi: Tears of Desert Water and SOIL, exploring fatherhood, brotherhood, memory and the importance of telling Nigerian stories with authenticity.
And then we’re not going home. 👀
We head straight into AKWAABA, our festival launch party, with a DJ set from @samandollar welcome drinks and the official start of the WAFF weekend.
🎬 My Father’s Shadow + Panel Discussion
📅 Friday 11 September
⏰ 6:00pm
📍 Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
🔞 15
🎶 AKWAABA Launch Party from 8:15pm
Open entry
Three days of African cinema, conversation, music, workshops and community begin here.
Express Your Africa.
