Celebrating its 5th anniversary, Nova Frontier Film Festival (NFFF) in-partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre, returns in-person from June 24th to June 26th, 2022. Centered around the theme of Exile and Belonging, this year’s selection of films (spanning from narrative to experimental to documentary works, short and feature-length) grapple with existential questions related to experiences of uprootedness, departing, returning, belonging, motherhood, and home as a metaphor and extension of Mother Earth – timely, political, reflective, and riveting.

The 2022 edition of the NFFF will also include conversations, panels, and performances led by filmmakers, academics, activists, and teeming minds in-tune with the spirit and ethos of the festival.

Additionally, NFFF will collaborate with the Bronx Documentary Center, a non-profit gallery and educational institute who will program a selection of films and a panel highlighting their works from the Bronx community.

Egyptian-Australian documentary filmmaker Rendah Haj will also curate a selection of short films in the “Her Lens” program, navigating motherhood and womanhood through the intimate experiences of four young African women. In the streets of Cairo and Dakar, the heroines each grapple with the complexities of a kept secret, as they try to break-free from the ever present patriarchy and domestication confining them, and pursue a sense of agency over their lives and identity.

Through the lens of Queer African, Latin, and Muslim filmmakers, NFFF’s “I Am Here” program poetically explores the complexity of emotions surrounding being Queer, the search for love, belonging and identity in homophobic societies.

NFFF makes its return in-person to the Billie Holiday Theatre – which is celebrating its 50th anniversary and five decades of excellence and innovation.