Harlem Stage Presents The 2025 Nova Frontier Film Festival

Harlem Stage, the world-renowned performing arts institution igniting the artistic freedom of performing artists of the Global Majority, presents The Nova Frontier Film Festival (NFFF) 2025. This exciting festival represents a new beginning for the annual film and arts festival widely known for showcasing and incubating the works of visionary filmmakers and artists around the globe and featuring the best independent films from across the African Diaspora, The Middle East, and Latin America. For the first time since its inception, NFFF will make its way to Harlem, presented by Harlem Stage, for an expansive three-day experience consisting of 13 curated long-and-short-form film screenings, engaging filmmaker Q&As and industry talks and panel discussions – all designed to create a far-reaching platform for independent filmmakers and artists to be able to share their stories and perspectives with audiences. The Festival is part of  Harlem Stage’s 2024/2025 Season “When We Are Heard” – the inaugural season of the institution’s CEO & Artistic Director, Dr. Indira Etwaroo.

Centered around the theme of Freedom, this year’s selection of films define what it means to be free through stories of resistance, migration, love, and self-determination and will centers female filmmakers. A couple of the highlights joining the lineup include: Raoul Peck’s powerful new documentary, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, which revives interest in the groundbreaking South African photographer who chronicled the brutal realities of apartheid. Another socially resonant feature drama follows Souleymane, an undocumented Guinean immigrant—portrayed by Abou Sangare, winner of the Un Certain Regard Best Actor prize at Cannes—over the course of two days as he navigates the bustling streets of Paris as a bike courier.