The Chicago African Diaspora International Film Festival (ADIFF Chicago) celebrates its 20th anniversary with programs and screenings at FACETS and the Gene Siskel Film Center from June 15-18, 2023. 

Since its inception, ADIFF Chicago have presented culturally significant films that explore the Black and Indigenous experience, giving a multidimensional voice to often misrepresented realities and peoples. For the 20th anniversary, ADIFF Chicago brings a special selection of films and events to FACETS from June 15-17 and the Gene Siskel Film Center on June 18. 

FACETS screenings (6/15-6/17): Several films in this year’s festival explore the interaction between immigrants and their surroundings, including the Opening Night film, Edson Jean’s Ludi (6/15), Petr Lom’s Angels on Diamond Street (6/16), and YAFA, Forgiveness (6/17) by Christian Lara. Two new African films present the work of upcoming African filmmakers: The Africologist (6/16), an innovative Afrofuturist documentary from Cape Verde filmmaker Valerio Lopes, and Blind Eye (6/16) by filmmaker Mengameli Nhlabathi which addresses the mechanism behind corruption in South Africa society. Closing out the FACETS screenings are two music documentaries, Fantastic Negrito: Have you Lost Your Mind Yet? (6/17) by Francisco Núñez Capriles & Yvan Iturriaga, and Music Pictures: New Orleans (6/17) by Ben Chace.  

Gene Siskel Film Center screenings (6/18): kicking off the day is the Spotlight on Mali with two films: WÙLU (6/18) by Daouda Coulibaly is an urgent and vibrant African thriller that follows Ladji who is lured into the lucrative but highly dangerous world of drug smuggling, followed by the 1960s colonial period drama Dancing the Twist in Bamako (6/18). The final screening of ADIFF Chicago 2023 will be the Closing Night event with Move When the Spirit Says Move: The Legacy of Dorothy Cotton (6/18), an inspiring portrait of Dorothy Foreman Cotton, a courageous and overlooked key player in the Civil Rights Movement. Director/Producer Deborah C. Hoard and Executive Producer and Senior Advisor Laura Branca will be in attendance for a post screening discussion and reception in celebration of Juneteenth. Buy tickets for Gene Siskel Film Center screenings here. 

PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP  

ADIFF Chicago 2023 is made possible thanks to the generous support of FACETS, Gene Siskel Film Center, and ArtMattan Productions. The African Diaspora International Film Festival is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization.   

ABOUT ADIFF 

Established in 1993, the African Diaspora International Film Festival (ADIFF) is a Harlem based minority-led not-for-profit international film festival that presents, interprets, and educates about films that explore the human experience of people of color all over the world in order to inspire imaginations, disrupt stereotypes and help transform attitudes that perpetuate injustice. 

Learn more at nyadiff.org