Join us to open the Washington University African Film Festival with a screening of The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966), the official documentary of the Festival Mondial des Arts Negrès (FESMAN) held in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966. Over 2,000 artists, dancers, intellectuals, performers, and writers from Africa and the African diaspora gathered to celebrate Black culture in the newly independent nation of Senegal. Director, producer, actor, and writer William Greaves documented this historic event that included exhibitions of classical, modern, and contemporary African art, performances and theatrical productions, and a colloquium of philosophers, authors, and cultural critics.

Enjoy a brief poetry reading by Baba Badji, postdoctoral associate in Comparative Literature | Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University, prior to the screening and a Q&A with Badji and Wilmetta Diallo-Toliver, Senior Assistant Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences and Senior Lecturer in African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences, after the screening.

Free and open to the public. Register here >>

Presented in conjunction with the Washington University African Film Festival. The Museum galleries will be open for extended hours until 7 pm on March 23–25 to view the exhibition African Modernism in America before the Film Festival's screenings.

Image credit

Marpessa Dawn, Duke Ellington, and Langston Hughes (far right) at the Festival Mondial des Arts Negrès, 1966.