Actor Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Lethal Weapon) will be the Pan African Film Festival’s (PAFF) 2022 celebrity ambassador. The 30th annual festival will be held in-person and online February 8-21, 2022, in Los Angeles. Glover is a co-founder of the PAFF along with the late actress Ja’Net Dubois (“Good Times”) and Pan African affairs expert Ayuko Babu. In January, he is scheduled to receive the 2022 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his contributions to filmmaking and the world.
“The role of the PAFF Celebrity Ambassador is to broaden public awareness of the festival as well as its mission,” said PAFF co-founder and executive director Ayuko Babu. “Since 1992, Danny has made the Pan African Film Festival and supporting Black filmmakers a priority, and so it naturally made sense for him to be the festival’s celebrity ambassador as we celebrate 30 years of Black storytelling through film and art.”
The PAFF is a twelve-day event that exists to evolve the emerging Black storyteller. Each year the PAFF showcases the broad spectrum of creative works and films by visionaries who highlight the diverse stories of Black America, Africa, and the global Black Diaspora.
“I am thrilled to be the celebrity ambassador for the 30th annual Pan African Film Festival, which has had a profound impact on Black filmmaking and Black filmmakers since 1992,” said Danny Glover. “The Pan African Film Festival is a cultural icon that has grown over the past 30 years into the largest Black film festival in the U.S., and I’m proud of any role I played in making that happen.”
The 30th annual PAFF will feature 150 new high-quality Black films from the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, the South Pacific, Canada, and increasingly, Asia. In addition, the PAFF will present over 100 fine artists and unique craftspeople from over 40 countries and six continents in a showcase of Pan African cultures.
An Oscar-qualifying festival for animation and live-action films, the 30th Annual PAFF will take place in-person in Los Angeles and online worldwide February 8-22, 2022.
