Free First Thursday

Join us for Free First Thursday featuring screenings and programs from the Cascade Festival of African Films. This event kicks off the festival’s month-long celebration across Portland and honors its 36th anniversary as the longest-running African film festival in the Pacific Northwest. Experience powerful storytelling, artist voices, and community dialogue across multiple museum spaces.

Free Day Highlights:

• 12 – 6:30 p.m., Whitsell Auditorium: Short films curated by the Cascade Festival of African Films:
  • The Origin of the Devils by director Efraín Serna Andres Fuentes Serna (Mexico). In Oaxaca and Guerrero’s Costa Chica region, Afro-descendants continue to honor the memory and fight for freedom of the Africans enslaved during the colonial era through their Dance of the Devils, their cries; and the use of instruments such as their own bodies, the Charrasca, and the Tigrera. This short film portrays this still-present community fight and the customs and culture of Afro-indigenous peoples.
  • Blessings of the Water (Intsikelelo Yamanzi) by directors Onke Meje and Michelle Name (South Africa). When Cape Town encounters an extreme stretch without water, things get desperate. Perhaps it’s a little boy who returns us to our humanity.
• 12 – 2:30 p.m., Finley Studio: An African (Mali) sculpture activity facilitated by the organization Ko Falen, making butterflies, dragonflies and flowers out of recycled aluminum cans.
• 12 – 6:30 p.m., 4th floor Northwest Galleries: Community conversation and storytelling sessions with members of the African diaspora, held in To Gather Your Leaving:
  • 12 p.m.: Grace Kook-Anderson, The Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Northwest Art
  • 12:30 p.m: Mimy Manavihare (Madagascar)
  • 1:30 p.m: Rukshana Triem (Mozambique)
  • 2:30 p.m: Amel Tafsout (Algeria)
  • 4:30 p.m: Dr Giramata (Rwanda)
  • 5:30 p.m: Kennedy Wambalaba (Kenya)
• 3:30 – 6 p.m., Finley Studio: Join teaching artist Jeremy Okai Davis, along with other museum visitors to collaboratively construct portraits of filmmakers and actors showcased in this year’s Cascade Festival of African Films, using colorful tissue paper.
• 4 – 6:30 p.m., Black Art and Experiences Galleries: Music by DJ Reese Bowes.