Africa First is a program started by Focus Features in which the specialty distributor identifies promising new directorial talent from continental Africa, provides them grant money for the creation of short films, and then brings them to New York for a summit weekend of mentorship, feedback, and discussion with the program’s advisory board. Read about the 2009 award recipients here, and check out this video documenting this year’s summit, which just concluded. About half-way through you’ll see clips of the award films, which are a fascinating look at the diversity of work being developed in Africa these days.