The capital city of Brussels, Belgium is set to host the ninth edition of its annual Afropolitan Festival from February 27 to March 2, 2025. Themed: ‘Joy Is A Song Anywhere’, will feature black and African artists as American poet and contemporary artiste, Aja Monet, Congolese band, Kolinga, and Congolese filmmaker and director, Mweze Ngangura.
Borrowed from the line of Monet’s song, the Afropolitan Festival 2025 theme is focused on black artists as carriers or transmitters of joy and positive transformation. It pays tribute to black communities who over generations, have overcome many hardships with unshakable resilience and a penchant for joy.
The festival will feature the three artists in panel discussions, debates, film screenings music concerts, exhibitions and performances.
The festival kickstarts on 27 February with ‘Bozar All Over The Palace – Nocturne February’ – organizer Bozar’s monthly event that promotes discussion amongst multidisciplinary artists, with the collective Som-m-e Of Us helming the event.
An art exhibition inspired by American female filmmaker Ava Duvernay’s film ‘When They See Us’, with the same title opens on the 28th. It will feature a century dated artworks of black-figure painting, exploring black self-representation and global black subjectivities. The 150 works by 120 artists are grouped into six themes: ‘The Everyday’, ‘Joy & Revelry’, ‘Repose’, ‘Sensuality’, ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Triumph and Emancipation’.
There will be a ‘Sofa Session’ with Monet and Sarah Diedro Jordao and ‘Meet The Writer’ with Monet on February 28th and March 1. Kolinga will be on the STACE platform, while ‘A Close Up on Ngangura’ – will explore the filmmaker’s background and works.
From ‘Changa Changa, Rhythms in Black and White’, a documentary made in Brussels that explores intercultural exchanges and the mutual enrichment between music and encounters during the 1980s, to the film ‘Identity In Pieces’ – the story of a King who after years without news of his daughter embarked on a journey to Belgium to find her, and Le Roi, La Vache et Le Bananier- which offers a unique insight to Ngangura’s native region Kingdom of Ngweshe in Kivu, eastern Zaire. The film reveals the daily living in the kingdom as it faces up to the challenges of modernity.
The films are part of the Close-Up devoted to the filmmaker who arrived in Belgium at the age of 20 and made two short films during his studies at IAD Broadcasting School: Electronic Tamtam, Rhythm and Blood.
Other events include the premiere of the documentary, ‘Villa Madjo: Tales From The Source’, by Brussels-based, bi-racial photographer, videomaker and broadcaster, Elen Sylla, by Leonard Pongo. Sylla is born to an African-born white father and a European-born black mother. The short documentary explores the complex history of her family, from colonialism to their experience as an interracial couple in Europe between the 1950s to 1970s.
