EMMY   Awards  - winning  Hollywood  actress,   LYNN   WHITFIELD   was   last  week  unveiled  in  Lagos  as  an  international  ambassador  for  this  years  edtion   of   AFRICA    INTERNATIONAL  FILM  FESTIVAL (AFRIFF) .

This was revealed by members of the AFRIFF team in a private session with media on the state of readiness for the 2nd edition of AFRIFF.   
The  first   edition  held  in December  last  year .

The AFRIFF team made this known that; the celebrity talent has indicated her willingness to be part of the festival scheduled to hold between the 29th of November, 2011      till     5th of December, 2011.

Lynn Whitfield made her film debut in the 1982 comedy film, “Dr. Detroit”.

Four years later, the U.S. Louisiana born and bred Whitfield played the title character in the fact-based TV movie, Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI, the story of the first black female FBI agent.

After gaining recognition for her work in a number of TV miniseries dramas, including “The Women of Brewster Place” (1990), Whitfield won an Emmy award and international acclaim for her starring performance in the HBO biopic “The Josephine Baker Story” in 1991.

Whitfield subsequently split her efforts between TV and film, increasing her exposure with movies like "A Thin Line between Love and Hate" and "Gone Fishing'" (both 1996), then doing particularly strong work in Kasi Lemmons' much-feted “Eve's Bayou” (1997) featuring as a family matriarch struggling with her husband's infidelity. In 1999, she earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for her work in “Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding”, a 1950s drama in which she was cast as the wealthy mother of a young woman (Halle Berry) intent on marrying a poor white musician.

More recently, Whitfield joined forces with Tyler Perry, who handpicked her for a role in the the popular screen adaptation of his play, “Madea’s Family Reunion” (2006). And she will soon be seen in the upcoming film, “Mama I Want To Sing,” joining music legend Patti LaBelle and outstanding newcomer Cierra, in a re-make of the off-Broadway play on the life of R&B singer Doris Troy.

Project Director/C.E.O  of  AFRIFF, Ms  Chioma  Ude  describes Whitfield as a highly creative personality who is very passionate about contributing to the improvement of the African film industry and hopes to use AFRIFF as a veritable vehicle to impact positively on the local film industry with her wealth of experience and contacts. Also speaking about Whitfield's clout, she enumerated several notable  film directors that she has worked with throughout her career such as Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Jamie Foxx, Bruce Greenwood, Keith David and Dylan Baker to mention a few.