BMW Art Car Inspires African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC)

BMW and artist Julie Mehretu launch AFMAC, a cultural project empowering African filmmakers through workshops and a film anthology across five cities.

When artist Julie Mehretu began imagining how to take the BMW Art Car project further, she redefined the boundaries of what it could be. The result is the African Film and Media Arts Collective (AFMAC), a bold cultural initiative connecting filmmakers, artists, and writers across Africa and its diaspora.

Her vision grew from the 20th BMW Art Car — a strikingly abstract design applied to the BMW M Hybrid V8, first unveiled at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in May 2024. After its debut, the car raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and now serves as the catalyst for a wider dialogue on culture, identity, and memory through contemporary African cinema.

Alongside Emmy-nominated producer and Realness Institute co-founder Mehret Mandefro, Mehretu launched AFMAC with a series of workshops in five African cities: Lagos, Dakar, Tangier, Nairobi, and Cape Town. Each workshop will result in the creation of a short film and offer participants access to archival African film history, sparking critical conversations around identity, media, and collective memory.

The project kicks off April 15 in Lagos in collaboration with the non-profit Angels & Muse. It then moves across the continent, culminating in Cape Town in 2026 with a final exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA. The anthology of films will be curated by Koyo Kouoh — current director of the museum and appointed curator of the 2026 Venice Biennale.

This marks the first time in BMW Art Car’s 50-year history that an artist extends the concept beyond the car itself. BMW’s broader cultural engagement strategy, which spans contemporary art, architecture, music, and film, finds a new, dynamic form in AFMAC.

The workshops build upon methodologies developed at Denniston Hill, an artist residency founded by Mehretu in New York. That space was designed as a site for artistic exchange and retreat — an ethos now transplanted to the African continent.

The program brings together a constellation of acclaimed voices: filmmaker Mati Diop, artist Coco Fusco, writer Robin Coste Lewis, director Wanuri Kahiu, and collectives like The Nest. Together, they transform AFMAC into more than an artistic endeavor — it becomes a platform for experimentation, storytelling, and shaping the future of African cinema.

Source: bmwgroup.com