CULVER CITY — In a year in which the new American president’s extended family lives in a Kenyan village on the shores of Lake Victoria, the cultural significance of the annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival has perhaps never been so firmly in tune with the cultural conversation as has been the case in 2009.

There were rumblings when the main festival program, which closes Sunday, moved this year from the Crenshaw District to the Culver City Plaza Theatre.

But there has been no shortage of film devotees eager to consume the dozens of films that are part of the 17th annual showcase, which began Feb. 5 with the opening night offering “Jerusalema,” a violent drama set in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The centerpiece film, “Skin,” which played Wednesday night, is the moving and true story of Sandra Laing, an apartheid-era South African woman born to White parents who — through a genetic fluke — appears Black. Tormented and shunned by White society, she falls in love with a Black man and moves to a township, alienating her parents. The critically acclaimed film stars “Hotel Rwanda” star Sophie Okonedo and recently picked up the Audience Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

“I was very moved and instantly knew there was film it,” recounted the film’s director, Anthony Fabian, describing in a panel discussion the moment he heard the story. “I went to South Africa and discovered she was living in a township in the middle of nowhere. I had some [White] friends of friends who had never been to a township, and we drove out there. They had a gun in the car, and as darkness was descending, they were getting more and more anxious. It was ridiculous. I felt completely relaxed, but that was probably due to naiveté.”

Dramatic fare takes center stage once again with Sunday night’s closing night film “Relative Stranger,” written by Eric Haywood and directed by Charles Burnett. Starring Eriq LaSalle, Cicely Tyson and Michael Beach, the film deals with alienation and family redemption.

“Our mission is to get folks to have a more sophisticated and complex understanding of who we are as a people,” said Ayuko Babu, PAFF’s co-founder and executive director. “If you think our story just begins in Chicago and Mississippi, or Canada, then you’re missing the point. As a result of slavery and colonization, we’re spread all over the planet. It’s like the great Sierra Leonean writer Syl Cheney-Coker said, in order to understand the complex nature of our lives, you’ve got to understand your story.”

Babu added: “I have to understand your story, a brother from Nigeria, and you have to understand Babu’s story coming from Wyoming. If people have been coming to the festival, they will have a better understanding of who President Obama is, because we’ve been showing films from Kenya for 15 years. Films that have dealt with his father’s experience.”

Asked to name his personal festival highlights, Babu singled out the L.A. premiere of “Moroko,” a film about how in 1990, Nigeria’s ruling military class evicted 300,000 people from a parcel of land. He also championed the arts festival portion of the event, which tends to receive less attention.

“In terms of the art show, there is very little public space for our artists, clothes designers and sculptors to showcase their work,” said Babu. “They are virtually excluded from museums and galleries across the country, so they need to try and make a living by putting their art in events like ours, which have a number of sister shows across the country.”

Finding the next generation of talent is always an important part of any film festival event, and a number of movies in the short film program showed considerable promise. A British festival entry, “Tight Jeans,” is a sublimely funny nine-minute short written and directed by Destiny Ekaragha about three Black teens waxing philosophical and cultural while waiting on a fence for their buddy; “Seven Breaths,” directed by Gershon Hinkson, concerns the fine line between morality and vengeance; and Rahsaad Ernesto Green’s “Premature” is an uncomfortably honest portrayal of the hardest decision a streetwise teenager will ever make.

Among the new filmmakers is Detroit native Jay Reid, who produced a short called “Dockweiler,” his thesis film for the American Film Institute. Written and directed by fellow AFI graduate Nick J. Palmer, it gives the story of a conflicted ex-con who heads up the community service program at a Malibu beach.

“I’ve worked in public access television in Michigan and was also a teacher,” said Reid. “But I was dying to make a change and came out here three years ago. I just love turning ideas into action.”