A Look at the Three African Films In Sundance 2026’s Short Film Selection
- John Eriomala
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Sundance 2026's Short Film Section features three African films: Praise Odigie Paige's Birdie, Will Niava's Jazz Infernal, and Rami Jarboui's The Bird's Placebo.
Three short films with African narratives have made the Official Short Film Section at the January 22 to February 1, 2026, Sundance Film Festival, as revealed in a December 15 announcement.
The first of the three is Birdie, directed, written, and produced by Nigerian-born Director Praise Odigie Paige, with additional production by Noni Limar and Nat Majette. Set in 1970, it follows a 16-year-old Nigerian refugee in Virginia who tries to keep her family together when a newcomer draws her sister away. ‘It’s the story of a mother and her two teenage daughters navigating the aftermath of the Biafran war in a foreign land’, per Inclusivity Media, exploring themes of resilience and identity.
Birdie was selected as part of the 16 US Fiction Short Films and stars Precious Maduanusi, Eniola Abioro, and Stella Chukwulozie. Nigerian-born director Praise Odigie Praise previously worked on Goodnight Mary (2019) and Simoune, which has been at multiple festivals, including the 2019 Lake Placid Festival and Portland Film Festival.
Director and Screenwriter Will Niava’s Jazz Infernal sees Koffi, a young Ivorian trumpeter, arrive in Montréal with nothing but the legacy of his father to guide him. Lost between the city’s noise and the silence of his past, he must confront his roots to finally find his voice. It stars Ange-Eric N’guessan, Alexis Belhumeur, and Kalombo Kasongo, with additional screenwriting by Kristelle Laroche and production by Zion-Lipstein-Saffer and Samuel Caron. It’s one of three Canadian fiction short films competing.
The Bird’s Placebo (Tunisia) by Director and Screenwriter Rami Jarboui is the only film coming directly from the continent. The animation short film is about a young man in a wheelchair from a marginalised Tunisian neighbourhood who dreams of crossing the Mediterranean Sea until a surreal encounter shifts his path. It’s produced by Sarra Ben Hassen, Ramses Mahfoudh, and Lotti Mahfoudh, and stars Yassine Bardaa, Fatrma Falhi, and Mohamed Hassine Grayaa.
This is The Bird Placebo’s North American Premiere. It was previously shortlisted as one of the Development Short Film Projects at the 2021 Malmö Arab Film Festival and made the Short Shorts Film Festival and Asia 2026 Shortlist.
The three are part of the program of 54 films, selected from 11,480 submissions, from 22 countries. According to Heidi Zwicker, Sundance’s Senior Programmer, Feature Films and Short Films, they are in a lineup that is so different from each other, and inventive, with “so much dynamic and exciting filmmaking to enjoy throughout the program”. They also serve as an improvement on Sundance 2025, where only one Short Film with African Narrative, B(l)ind The Sacrifice, screened.
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