The Chronicle interview.

• Position: Mahen Bonetti - Interview

"I know what Africa has given me and what she's capable of", says Mahen Bonetti, founder and Executive Director of the African Film Festival, Inc., but although everyone was talking about Africa at the end of the 1980s, "there was no African voice". This "paradox of culture"--when images of starving African children flooded television screens while "world music" came into being and African-American emerged as a political concept of identity--led her to finding ways of fostering a cultural dialogue between Africa and the United States. Realizing that cinema would be the ideal medium for such a cultural exchange, she put all her energy into creating the African Film Festival (AFF) in New York City. Horst Rutsch of the UN Chronicle speaks with Ms. Bonetti about using films to bring African culture to audiences in the United States.

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On establishing the African Film Festival in New York

New York in the 1980s was vibrant, with different cultural expressions in terms of music, dance and fashion. More than ever, I felt the presence of Africa in these different cultural media.

In 1989, I visited the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and came across a thirty-year retrospective of African cinema. It clicked right away. This is how we could show Africa to others, through films made by African filmmakers. This modern art form could preserve something from Africa's culture and further our education, especially because literacy rates were not so high. Upon my return to New York, I called the Lincoln Center, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Public Theater to get their support. Everyone expressed interest, but said such a programme would be hard to sell. Even high-powered blacks told me they were not interested; that really challenged me. I was discouraged because I was not getting the response from people that I had expected; nevertheless I remained determined.

The best response I received was from Richard Pena of the Film Society of Lincoln Center who had a track record of successfully showcasing international films. AFF was launched in 1993 and was the Center's first collaboration when they built the Walter Reade Theater. To everyone's surprise, the audience demand was so overwhelming that they extended the festival from ten days to an entire month! This led to foundations being interested in supporting the Festival.

On the idea of cultural exchange through the AFF

The Film Festival was conceived to promote cross-cultural...