AfroMundo Festival: “The Future is Now”
Monday, April 13, 2026
7:00 pm
NHCC | Bank of America Theatre
2026 AfroMundo Festival: “Futurism: Manifesting the Envisioned”
Featured Regions: U.S. & U.S. Territories: Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Mariana Islands
Screening of documentary “The Fight to Preserve & Revitalize the Chamorro Language.” Directed by Brian Muna. 2025. 13m. Followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. Panelists include Ashby Combahee, Library and Archives Program Manager at the Highlander Research and Education Center; Darlene T. Gomez, attorney for Medicine Wheel Ride; Gabby Langkilde, founder of Pasefika Presence; and Akilah Martinez, award-winning Diné creative technologist and cultural bearer. Moderated by CHamoru filmmaker Brian Muna.
The 2026 AfroMundo Festival is free to the general public with limited seating and includes films, concerts, literature, oral traditions, panel discussions, culinary and other arts to foster a greater understanding of our shared humanity. Learn more at afromundo.org.
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Panel discussion with:
Ashby Combahee is the Library and Archives Program Manager at the Highlander Research and Education Center. Their work focuses on the documentation and preservation of southern grassroots liberation movements in United States. They are a co-founder of Georgia Dusk: a southern liberation oral history. Ashby started the Southern Memory Workers Institute at the Highlander Center, which is a 5-day popular education workshop sharing skills in public history, archival preservation, documentary arts, and political strategy. They are also a research fellow with the Folk Education Association of America, focused on resourcing Black craftspeople and Black-led folk schools.
Darlene T. Gomez is a lifelong native of Northern New Mexico, having been born and raised in Lumberton where her ancestors homesteaded before New Mexico was incorporated into the United States. She has been practicing law for over 19 years and specializes in Indian Law, Complex Family Law, and advocating on behalf of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives (MMIWR). Darlene attended the University of New Mexico School of Law where she first began her pro bono work fighting for clean water in her hometown of Lumberton. She was the inaugural recipient of the Carlos Vigil Scholarship, among numerous other awards while in school. Darlene is tirelessly passionate about giving a voice to the voiceless through her pro bono work. She has been a fierce advocate for primary and secondary victims of the MMIWR crisis since 2001 and spends much of her time organizing rallies, mentoring and advocating for secondary victims, preparing and distributing press releases, and serving as the attorney for 15 families of MMIWR victims. She is a founding member of the New Mexico MMIW Task Force and serves as the general counsel for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Medicine Wheel Ride. She is widely considered a leading expert in MMIWR throughout the US and her persistent efforts on behalf of victims have led to an increase in domestic as well as international media attention for the MMIWR Public Health Crisis
Gabby Langkilde is a Samoan storyteller and the founder and executive editor of Pasefika Presence. Born and raised on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa, her love for storytelling was cultivated early in life —listening to ancient Samoan legends shared by her grandfather and later crafting her own tales for cousins, friends, and family to enjoy. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Harvard College, where she wrote “Pasefika Presence,” one of the first recurring columns in The Harvard Crimson to center Pacific Islander perspectives and issues. After graduating, she returned home to American Samoa and worked as an eighth-grade social studies teacher, and in 2023, she founded Pasefika Presence as an online, submission-based magazine uplifting Pacific Islander stories and art. Rooted in the same commitment to centering Pacific Islander perspectives as her original column, Pasefika Presence began as a way to engage her students in Pacific storytelling and has since grown into an international platform that has published two issues and received hundreds of submissions from creatives across the Pacific and its diasporas. Gabby went on to be awarded a Fulbright U.S. Graduate Award to pursue research in Auckland, New Zealand, and received an East-West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship to complete her master’s degree in Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Today, she continues to guide Pasefika Presence while using storytelling, education, and research to empower Pacific communities and expand space for Pasefika voices.
Akilah Martinez (Glittering World Girl) is an award-winning Diné creative technologist and cultural bearer from the Navajo Nation focusing on the creation of building an Indigenous-based circular economic ecosystem that cycles off of language & culture futurism through video art and XR technology. Akilah’s a 2024 New Mexico Women in Tech Emerging Leader Award, a guest speaker at the MIT Reality Hack in Cambridge, MA and Bridge Innovation Studio UCLA. Akilah’s team, Inkovator, won 1st place for the Snap track at Stanford XR Immerse The Bay 2024 and team, Yeigo, won two 1st place Gold Prizes at MIT Reality Hack 2025.
https://www.glitteringworldgirl.com
MODERATOR: Brian Muna is an established CHamoru filmmaker on the island of Guam with over 10 years of experience in the industry. His filmmaking credits also include commercial work for corporations on island and has also worked abroad for projects filmed in Japan, Taiwan, and had volunteered for a short-form documentary filmed in the Philippines (2017) aimed to support a non-profit organization to support funding for a children’s orphanage. Under his company, Brian Muna Films, he has directed, written, filmed and produced short films, music videos, and documentaries surrounding issues within the island and Pacific region. He has participated in numerous international film festivals, namely the Guam International Film Festival, where was awarded “Best Made in the Marianas” winner with one additional nomination for the films he directed: Luther (2015); Plastic Bag (2018); Madam (2015). In 2020, he was the recipient of the “Best Cinematography” award for the film Bittersweet (2020) at the Mumbai International Cult Film Festival. In 2024 Brian won “Best Short Film” at the 2024 Hawai’i International Film Festival for his documentary “CHamoru A Lost Language.”