Vieyra's Only Feature Returns in 4K at 33rd New York African Film Festival (NYAFF)

Tonight, Monday, May 11, 2026, at 8:15 p.m., the New York African Film Festival (NYAFF) presents the U.S. premiere of the 4K restoration of "En résidence surveillée" ("House Arrest"), the only feature-length fiction film by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, the Beninese-Senegalese filmmaker, critic, and historian widely cited as one of the foundational figures of sub-Saharan African cinema.

Vieyra's 1955 short "Afrique sur Seine", co-directed with Jacques Melo Kane and Mamadou Sarr, is generally credited as the first film made by sub-Saharan African directors, and his 1975 book "Le Cinéma africain: des origines à 1973" ("African Cinema: From the Origins to 1973") was one of the first systematic histories of African cinema.