Category: Press Release

BlackStar Projects Announces Festival Dates & Winter Program

BlackStar Projects is pleased to announce its winter program and upcoming events, including the dates and submission opening for the 14th annual BlackStar Film Festival taking place this summer.

At the beginning of a new year, BlackStar also looks back on a transformative 2024, which included a $1 million Arts & Culture grant from the Mellon Foundation, the fourth annual William & Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar, the release of issue 007 of Seen, the second annual BlackStar Luminary Gala, a curated film series in collaboration with the Barnes Foundation and Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the 13th edition of BlackStar Film Festival which included 96 films and attracted record ticket sales.

Photo by Daniel Jackson.

BlackStar Film Festival

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
Suzanne Roberts Theatre
The Wilma Theater
July 31-August 3, 2025

BlackStar Projects is thrilled to announce the 2025 BlackStar Film Festival and submission dates. This year’s festival will take place from July 31-August 3, 2025 across three venues all on Broad Street in center city Philadelphia – The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Suzanne Roberts Theater and the Wilma Theater. The majority of films will also be available to stream online.

Film submissions are now open through April 1, with an early submission deadline of February 1 and a preferred submission deadline of March 1. All accepted filmmakers will receive a screening fee and a travel stipend. BlackStar Pitch, a live pitch competition for short non-fiction projects, will return for its sixth year with a $75k prize for the winning project and $25k prize for the runner up. Pitch submissions will open later this year.

In 2024, MovieMaker Magazine named BlackStar Film Festival one of the 50 film festivals worth the entry fee and the festival ranked among the top 5 most accessible festivals in the world according to the Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report. Check out last year’s festival recap video here!

Raven Jackson presents director’s commentary on her film All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt with BlackStar CCO Imran Siddiquee at the 2024 Seminar. Photo by Biak Tha Hlawn.

William & Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar

Stanford University
March 7-9, 2025

Named after the visionary filmmakers who together co-produced landmark documentaries such as Symbiopsychotaxiplasm and Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey, the William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar is a gathering for Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists working in cinematic realms. At the fifth edition, hosted in collaboration with the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, participants can expect to explore the technical and creative aspects of media-making, while having honest conversations about the successes and pitfalls of their work. The Seminar will feature workshops, panels, film screenings and more, with the full program to be announced. Registration is now open and closes February 13.

BlackStar Love + Time

BlackStar Love + Time, a series of curated screenings co-presented with the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will host its closing event at each venue this month.

Still from One Magenta Afternoon (2022) directed by Vernon Jordan III.

Barnes Foundation
January 11, 2025, 2PM

On January 11, coinciding with the Barnes Foundation’s presentation of Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, the theme of “Kinship” is brought into focus through a series of shorts, including Mickalene Thomas’ directorial debut Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman. The series of films posit the idea that what is past is also present and celebrate the art created by Black people across time. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A with some of the featured filmmakers, moderated by James Claiborne, the Barnes Foundation’s Deputy Director for Community Engagement. Tickets are available here.

Still from Naked Acts, 1996. Courtesy Milestone Films.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
January 12, 1PM

On January 12, coinciding with the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, the nuance and richness of Black contemporary life is explored with a special screening of Bridgett M. Davis’ Naked Acts (1996). Celebrated as a key film in the canon of independent cinema by African Americans in the 1990s, Naked Acts was included in S. Torriano Berry’s seminal anthology The 50 Most Influential Black Films. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Davis and Niela Orr. Registration is available here.

About BlackStar Projects

BlackStar Projects is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes as BlackStar Film Festival. They have since expanded into year-round programs, including film screenings, exhibitions, the annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab, and a journal of visual culture.

These programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders, and distributors. BlackStar is working towards a liberatory world in which a vast spectrum of Black, Brown and Indigenous experiences is irresistibly celebrated in arts and culture.

Last August, BlackStar celebrated the 13th edition of BlackStar Film Festival, which featured a lineup of 96 films from more than 40 countries, including 16 world premieres, 16 North American premieres, and 10 United States premieres. The world-renowned four-day event, which also features artist panels, parties, and networking opportunities for filmmakers, saw record-breaking ticket sales last year.

For press inquires please contact ALMA, hannah@almacommunications.co

8 January, 2025
Now On Sale: BlackStar Projects’ Seen Issue 007

BlackStar is thrilled to announce that the seventh issue of Seen – the organization’s bi-annual journal of film and visual culture, dedicated to platforming nuanced and rigorous writing by and about Black, Brown and Indigenous communities globally – is now on sale. The issue is available for order here.

Seen 007 is guest edited by filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and BlackStar Film Festival alum, Ja’Tovia Gary, who shared:

To me, being seen means recognition and incorporation, the responsibility of which belongs to those with whom we are in community…seeing and being seen requires the audacity to claim the role of narrator, to be the one who defines. Recognition and incorporation by those that matter is an act of self determination. We look in the mirror to be seen just as we look into the eyes of our beloved for our reflection.

Ja’Tovia Gary, Letter from the Editor

Ja’Tovia Gary for Seen. Photo by Giancarlo Valentine.

The release coincides with a special partnership between Seen and american grammar, a multifaceted space that cultivates creativity, conversation and community through coffee, books, art, events and community programming located in Kensington, Philadelphia. In celebration of issue 007, Gary and contributor Joy James have curated a selection of books available at the store.

In addition to american grammar, Seen 007 is on sale at stockists around the world including Amant, CARA, Interesting Books + Zines, Issues Magazine Shop, Mag Culture Shop, New Museum, Now Instant LA, Omoi Zakka, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Printworks, Reparations Club, Skylight Books, Thayer and Washington Project for the Arts.

Seen 007 features a mix of conversations, profiles, interviews, essays and reviews, including A Love Ethic for the End of the World, a conversation between Ja’Tovia Gary and Dr. Joy James; J Wortham’s Finding Hope In the World Anew, a conversation between Wortham and first generation Palestinian writer, Zania Arafat about witnessing Gaza through social media, becoming a mother and why writing sustains her; Bridgett M. Davis’ Naked Acts Now, an essay reflecting on the second life of her 1996 debut feature film; Hanna Phifer’s Bride on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a review of Tayarisha Poe’s The Young Wife; Notes of Influence highlighting the work and practices of artists Hugh Hayden and Charisse Weston; and Dr. Lamonda H. Stallings’ Crafting Intimacy, on the work of intimacy coordination as a decolonial and de-westernizing mission.

Other key contributors include Kaitlyn Greenidge, Anisia Uzeyman, Robert Pruitt, Heidi Saman, Kelli Weston, Meghana Kandlur, Jomo Fray, Shannon Baker Davis, Terilyn Shropshire, Louis Massiah, Amarie Gipson, Jasmin Hernandez and Yasmine El Rashidi.

On October 29, 2024, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, BlackStar will celebrate the release of Seen 007 with a launch event and conversation between Ja’Tovia Gary and Bridgett M. Davis. The two will dive deep into Davis’ work, exploring a variety of themes, including on screen depictions of Black bodies, sexuality, and intimacy coordination.⁠ The conversation will be followed by a reception in the museum.

Later this fall, BlackStar will co-present a series of curated screenings at the Barnes Foundation to coincide with the new exhibition, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to coincide with group exhibition The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. More information and the full schedule of curated screenings will be released in coming weeks.

Seen 007 is supported by a grant from Critical Minded and the National Endowment for the Arts and printed in Canada by Hemlock Printers. BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Ford Foundation/Just Films, Independence Public Media Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Perspective Fund, The Philadelphia Foundation, PopCulture Collaborative, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation and Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous individual donors and organizations. Invaluable support is provided by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

About BlackStar Projects
BlackStar Projects is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes as BlackStar Film Festival. They have since expanded into year-round programs, including film screenings, exhibitions, the annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab, and a journal of visual culture.

The organization creates the spaces and resources needed to uplift the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists working outside the confines of genre. Their programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders, and distributors. BlackStar is working towards a liberatory world in which a vast spectrum of Black, Brown and Indigenous experiences is irresistibly celebrated in arts and culture.

This August, BlackStar celebrated the 13th edition of BlackStar Film Festival, which featured a lineup of 96 films from more than 40 countries, including 16 world premieres, 16 North American premieres, and 10 United States premieres. The world-renowned four-day event, which also features artist panels, parties, and networking opportunities for filmmakers, saw record-breaking ticket sales this year.

17 October, 2024
BlackStar Projects Announces 2024 Luminary Gala

BlackStar Projects is pleased to announce its 2024 Luminary Gala, honoring New Negress Film Society and multifaceted artists and filmmakers Tourmaline, Annemarie Jacir and Louis Massiah. The gala will take place on December 3, 2024 at Switch House in Philadelphia from 6-11PM. Ticketing and sponsorship information is available here.

First held in 2023, the Luminary Gala is an unforgettable evening in celebration of the luminaries shaping and shifting the arts, culture and media landscape; bringing together artists, philanthropists and BlackStar’s community of friends to shine a light on the organization’s work and garner support for BlackStar’s suite of year-round cultural programming that provides Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists with the resources, support, and shine they need to thrive.

The Luminary Awards honor individuals and collectives for their contributions as artists and cultural workers. This year’s awardees display a commitment to social justice, embracing collaboration and celebrating a wide spectrum of aesthetics and storytelling practices. The 2024 honorees also reflect BlackStar’s mission – New Negress Film Society, as a collective of Black women and non-binary filmmakers focusing on making and showcasing work that breaks boundaries in film politically and artistically; Tourmaline as an artist, filmmaker, writer and activist whose practice highlights the experiences of Black, queer and trans communities and their capacity to impact the world; Annemarie Jacir as a writer, director and producer who’s laid the groundwork for Palestinian artists to have greater platforms for their cinema globally; and Louis Massiah as a documentary filmmaker and community activist working with Philadelphians to develop filmmaking skills and get access to resources to author their own stories.

TICKETS ON SALE

The evening will feature performances by Melanie Charles, a genre-bending musical artist who experiments with dynamic engagements with jazz, soul and R&B, along with an after-party that will include desserts and dancing.

The Luminary Gala is a microcosm of BlackStar’s multiplicity, an intentional community building moment, connecting its profound, diverse audience in a Black-led space centered on joy and thriving. Sponsors and contributors will be directly investing in the sustainability of BlackStar’s efforts to rectify systemic imbalances in the media arts and beyond and support the mission of amplifying the moving image as a transformative tool for social change.

The Luminary Gala Host Committee includes Adjoa Jones de Almeida, Andre Carroll, Andre Robert Lee, Bill Adair, Dana Gills, Deesha Philyaw, Dyana Williams, Ernest Owens, Irit Reinheimer, James Claiborne, Jenny Raskin, Kyle Easley, Lauren Holland, Marcel Pratt, Nikil Saval, Nuala Cabral, Rachel Branson, Rakia Reynolds, Raymond Perkins, Reggie Brown and Tina Farris.

BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Critical Minded, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Independence Public Media Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, McLean Contributionship, Mellon Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Perspective Fund, The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures, Pop Culture Collaborative, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous individual donors and organizations.

ABOUT THE HONOREES

New Negress Film Society was founded in 2013 by Kumi James (formerly Wendy James) in response to her observation that the films and critical interventions made by Black women filmmakers were seldom highlighted or discussed in public and private institutions. In May 2013, James organized a screening called I Am A Negress of Noteworthy Talent showcasing the works of Nevline Nnaji, Nikyatu Jusu, Nuotama Bodomo, Ja’Tovia Gary and herself and then convened the screening’s participants to form New Negress Film Society in June 2013 with Nevline Nnaji, Nuotama Bodomo and Ja’Tovia Gary and herself as its founding members. BlackStar remains inspired by New Negress Film Society’s focus on political thought and recognition of the importance of collective strength. Stefani Saintonge and Yvonne Michelle Shirley will accept the award on behalf of New Negress Film Society.

Stefani Saintonge is a filmmaker and editor who won the juried and audience awards at BlackStar Film Festival for her short film, Fucked Like a Star. Her work has screened internationally at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival and Hammer Museum among others. As an editor, Saintonge has collaborated with renowned artists such as Simone Leigh, Bradford Young and Julie Dash and her edited works have screened at Sundance, Berlinale, Tribeca, Guggenheim and PBS. As a member of New Negress Film Society, she co-created the Black Women’s Film Conference and has received support from Ford Foundation, SFFILM and Jerome Foundation.

Yvonne Michelle Shirley is a filmmaker and the executive director of the Community Media Center at Express Newark, a socially engaged art center at Rutgers University, Newark. Her work as a director and producer has screened at festivals including BlackStar Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance and Tribeca Film Festival and she has directed projects for T Magazine, Nike, AFROPUNK and TOPIC.

Tourmaline is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and activist whose practice highlights the experiences of Black, queer, and trans communities in her films and photographs. Tourmaline has had solo exhibitions at MUDAM and Chapter NY and her work has also been presented within significant group exhibitions such as the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Acts of Resilience at South London Gallery, Artist and Society at Tate Modern; the 2022 Venice Biennale; Mountain/Time at Aspen Art Museum; Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time at the Bronx Museum and Critical Fabulations at MoMA. Tourmaline’s work is included in the permanent collections of MUDAM, Brooklyn Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, LACMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Tate Modern and the Whitney Museum of American Art. BlackStar honors Tourmaline’s work rewriting mainstream narratives and cultural histories to imagine a more liberatory future and reconsider what’s possible.

Annemarie Jacir has written, directed and produced over sixteen films with premieres in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno and Toronto. All three of Jacir’s feature films have been selected as Palestine’s Oscar Entry for Foreign Language Film. In 2007, she shot the first feature film by a Palestinian woman director, the acclaimed Salt of this Sea, Jacir’s second film to debut in Cannes Film Festival, which went on to win the FIPRESCI Critics Award and garnered fourteen other international awards. Jacir is the Founder of Philistine Films, an independent production company focusing on productions related to the Arab world and has paved the way for Arab filmmakers to pursue careers in film, co-founder of Dreams of a Nation, a Columbia University based film project committed to the preservation and promotion of Palestinian cinema and the co-founder of the artist run Dar Jacir for Art & Research, a multi-faceted project devoted to educational, cultural and agricultural activities in her hometown of Bethlehem. BlackStar honors Jacir as a pioneer whose work inspires us to ask questions, exchange ideas, to dream and invites discourse around urgent human rights issues.

Louis Massiah is a documentary filmmaker and community activist committed to sharing his passion for film to make the medium more accessible for aspiring local filmmakers. In 1982, Massiah founded the Scribe Video Center, a Philadelphia non-profit organization which explores, develops and advances the use of electronic media as a tool for social change and to document contemporary concerns and events. Massiah’s documentaries include The Bombing of Osage Avenue and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices. He’s been a visiting professor/artist at Swarthmore, Princeton, UPenn and Howard, named a MacArthur “genius award” fellow and is currently AD White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. BlackStar honors Massiah as a visionary filmmaker invested in community and for building a participatory platform for those interested in making work towards a higher, more civilized humanity.

10 September, 2024
BlackStar Film Festival 2024 Flourishes

BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists celebrated its 13th annual film festival this past weekend and is proud to announce the jury and audience award winners.

The 2024 edition of the festival continued to push boundaries by spotlighting genre-defying films and hosting ground-breaking conversations with an expansive community of indie filmmakers, artists, panelists and festival goers, all of whom met the moment with enthusiasm as this year’s festival welcomed thousands of attendees and record-breaking sales, including a sold out opening night world premiere of Shatara Michelle Ford’s Dreams in Nightmares.

From the 96 films screened, juried awards were given to Songs from the Hole, directed by Contessa Gayles, for Best Feature Documentary, After the Long Rains, directed by Damien Hauser, for Best Feature Narrative, Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), directed by Suneil Sanzgiri, for Best Experimental, And Still, It Remains, directed by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, for Best Short Documentary and Boat People, directed by Al’Ikens Plancher, for Best Short Narrative. The Philadelphia Filmmaker Award was given to Expanding Sanctuary, directed by Kristal Sotomayor and the second annual Center for Cultural Power’s Climate Change Award went to Bring Them Home, directed by Daniel Glick, Ivan MacDonald and Ivy MacDonald.

‘To be honored by BlackStar, [who] are really about honoring work that is pushing the genre…and decolonizing our storytelling practices, it means a lot,’ said director Contessa Gayles, in accepting her award for Best Feature Documentary.

In collaboration with Blackbird, BlackStar hosted the fourth annual BlackStar Pitch at the festival and announced the winner as Highways, a forthcoming project from filmmaker Zeshawn Ali. Nausheen Dadabhoy’s Halal Bodies was selected as the pitch runner-up. Ali’s team will receive $75,000, mentorship from Multitude Films and other benefits, while Dadabhoy’s production will receive $25,000.

Winners were announced at the annual Director’s Brunch and Awards Ceremony, a cornerstone moment co-presented by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, celebrating all of the festival’s directors. This year Telfar generously provided gifts and filmmakers enjoyed an exclusive coffee blend brewed in collaboration with Philadelphia roaster Win Win.

BlackStar also invited its audience to select awards in Favorite Feature Narrative (Inky Pinky Ponky – the Odd One Out), Favorite Feature Documentary (You Don’t Have to Go Home, But…), Favorite Short Narrative (Burnt Milk), Favorite Short Documentary (Planetwalker formerly known as A Symphony of Tiny Lights) and Favorite Experimental (Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?)) categories. More information on the award winning films from all categories is below.

The BlackStar panel series saw audiences overflow from The Daily Jawn Stage presented by NEON, with panelists and moderators engaging in lively conversation, inviting global perspectives and challenging dialogues on various topics, including Media-Making in The Time of Genocide, Duty of Care and Black on The Internet. Additional set decor for the stage was provided by Walter Pine Floral Studio.

BlackStar also unveiled the next cover of Seen, its bi-annual journal of film and visual culture and announced filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and BlackStar film festival alumni, Ja’Tovia Gary as the guest editor of the journal’s 7th edition. The issue will be released in October and is now available for pre-order here.

Additionally, in partnership with Points North Institute, BlackStar announced the 2024 North Star Fellows: Lokotah Sanborn, Imani Dennison, Zac Manuel and Rea Tajiri and with lead sponsor Black Experience on Xfinity, named Andrew Bilindabagabo, Kristal Sotomayor, Chisom Chieke, Walé Oyéjidé as the 2025 Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab Fellows. These fellowships and the Pitch competition demonstrate BlackStar’s ongoing commitment to providing artists of color opportunities to create genre defying work.

Beyond film, the festival’s activation of the city provided wonderful opportunities for artists, filmmakers and film enthusiasts to engage at sold out parties and events throughout the weekend.

Notable festival guests included Denée Benton, Shatara Michelle Ford, Zeba Blay, dream hampton, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Tayarisha Poe, Staceyann Chin, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Bashir Salahuddin, among others. BlackStar thanks its major supporters Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity.

Jury Awards

Best Feature Documentary

Songs From the Hole directed by Contessa Gayles

Songs From the Hole had the entire feature documentary jury in tears, selected for its layered approach to interrogating harm while skillfully centering participant collaboration and emotional justice. It’s a film that creatively inspired the filmmakers on this jury with its quiet beauty, artistry and redemptive arc; It’s a film that took strength and harbored wisdom, while managing to play with form and function.

Short Narrative

Boat People directed by Al’Ikens Plancher

Boat People is a short and strikingly minimalist film that covers historical ground and probes imagination in a swift, but unrushed matter of minutes. From the acting and cinematography to the design and lighting, it shifts the expected cinematic gaze. With little dialogue and much suggestion, the film takes us on a journey with a lead character who embodies resistance through silent yet potent gestures of refusal.

Experimental Film

Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) directed by Suneil Sanzgiri

Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) mixes different film strategies to tell an impeccably well-researched story. It’s thoughtful and potent, managing to deal cohesively with blurred temporalities and mixed geographies while maintaining the clarity of the director’s voice. This film is an embodied work that is sensorial and textured.

Feature Narrative

After the Long Rains directed by Damien Hauser

After the Long Rains was described by the jury as ‘sumptuous’ and ‘delicious.’ With divine cinematography and brilliant editing, this warm and textured film captures the intricacies of this African family’s life while being everybody’s story and honors the specifics of a child’s perspective through beautiful storytelling.

Short Documentary

And Still, It Remains directed by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah

Through durational and carefully-constructed cinematography, And Still, It Remains highlights the contrast between a land and the people living on it. The filmmakers reimpose a narrative of abundance and theft on this landscape and offer a dialogue between what we see and what we hear. Even the captions enhance the story as this film is a testament to making film more universally accessible.

Philadelphia Filmmaker Award

Expanding Sanctuary directed by Kristal Sotomayor

Expanding Sanctuary is an intimate and endearing film that beautifully portrays the power of immigrant communities and how organizing together can create a sense of belonging and real wins toward social change.

Center for Cultural Power’s Climate Change Award

Bring Them Home directed by Ivan MacDonald, Ivy MacDonald and Daniel Glick

Bring The Home cements Indigenous storytelling as a climate solution. At a time when our planet is on fire, it’s critical that we recognize that the climate crisis started with colonialism and that Indigenous storytellers help us confront, acknowledge and mourn what was lost, as well as to decolonize our imagination around climate solutions.

Audience Awards

Favorite Feature Narrative

Inky Pinky Ponky – the Odd One Out directed by Damon Fepule’ai & Ramon Te Wake

Favorite Feature Documentary

You Don’t Have to Go Home, But… directed by Aidan Un

Favorite Short Narrative

Burnt Milk directed by Joseph Douglas Elmhirst

Favorite Short Documentary

Planetwalker (A Symphony of Tiny Lights) directed by Dominic Gill and Nadia Gill

Favorite Experimental

Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) directed by Suneil Sanzgiri

Shine Award

The Whites of Our Eyes directed by Maame Adjei and Yaba Blay

BlackStar Pitch

Winner — Highways directed by Zeshawn Ali, produced by Aman Ali.

Highways tells the story of a truck stop in the midwest which has become a hub for immigrant cross- country truck drivers. Through an observational lens, this film follows these men as they build lives in this new country and try to find home on the open roads.

Runner-up — Halal Bodies directed by Nausheen Dadabhoy, produced by Heba Elorbany.

Do Muslim American parents have a sex talk with their kids? And if they don’t, how do young Muslims learn about sex, relationships, intimacy and their own sexual identities?

Major support for the festival was provided by the Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity.

Additional support for the festival provided by: AmericanDocumentary/POV, American Friends Service Committee, Andscape, Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania, Black Public Media, The Center for Cultural Power, Color Congress, Creative Artists Agency, Critical Minded, Documentary.org, Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Eventive, Firelight Media, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, International Documentary Association, Impact Partners, Indego, ITVS, Kashif, NEON, NeueHouse, Peace Is Loud, PECO, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Points North Institute, PNC Arts Alive, Runway, Soho House, StoryCorps, Temple University School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, University of Pennsylvania Department of Cinema & Media Studies, Visit Philadelphia, Walter Pine Floral Studio, Win Win Coffee, WORLD, WHYY and WURD.

5 August, 2024
BlackStar Announces: North Star Fellowship Cohort & Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab Fellows
BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists, is proud to announce the inaugural North Star Fellows, in partnership with Points North Institute and the 2025 Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab Fellows, presented with lead support by Black Experience on Xfinity.

2024 North Star Fellows
- Lokotah Sanborn
- Imani Dennison
- Zac Manuel
- Rea Tajiri
2025 Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab Fellows
- Andrew Bilindabagabo
- Kristal Sotomayor
- Chisom Chieke
- Walé Oyéjidé
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These fellowships demonstrate BlackStar’s ongoing commitment to providing artists of color opportunities to create genre defying work, both locally and nationally.

The fellows will be recognized at BlackStar Film Festival during a media announcement event on Saturday, August 3 at 10:30am at The Daily Jawn Stage in the Kimmel Center.

“The selected fellows in both of these programs represent the abundance of talent and vision we saw in this year’s applications,” said Maori Karmael Holmes, Chief Executive and Artistic Officer of BlackStar, “We are thrilled to be able to support these artists and excited to be a part of their filmmaking journey.”

The 2024 BlackStar Film Festival is currently underway, running through August 4, at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with additional screenings, festivities and events at various venues in Center City Philadelphia. 2024 marks the 13th annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown and Indigenous people from around the world.

Individual program tickets are on sale here, with festival passes also available here.

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North Star Fellowship

Presented in collaboration with Points North (home of the Camden International Film Festival), the North Star Fellowship supports four innovative Black, Brown and Indigenous media artists and filmmakers who are developing projects that span the latitudes of creative nonfiction through film, video installation, audio and photo-based work, immersive experiences and performance.

The North Star Fellows – Imani Dennison, Lokotah Sanborn, Rea Tajiri and Zac Manuel – will convene on two occasions; The Camden International Film Festival (September 9-15) and The William & Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar. Leading up to the 20th edition of the Camden International Film Festival, fellows gather for a one week creative retreat on the coast of Maine. A series of workshops, screenings and excursions create time and space for an ongoing critical dialogue about expanded documentary aesthetics, multidisciplinary creative processes, collaborative practices and more. Fellows are joined by curators, critics, filmmakers, multidisciplinary artists, and industry professionals, each of whom provides new perspectives on the Fellows’ creative process and the evolving universe of nonfiction.

The fellowship then recommences in the spring during the William & Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar, a gathering for Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists working in cinematic realms, proudly presented by BlackStar where the fellows will explore the technical and creative aspects of media-making, while having open dialogues about the about the successes and challenges of their work. The environment considers the intersection of cinema and visual arts and is exclusively designed for people of color to focus, rather than manage the added burden of representation.

“In partnership with the team at BlackStar, we’re so excited to support these artists for this year’s North Star Fellowship,” said Zeshawn Ali, Artist Programs Manager of Points North Institute. “Our goal has been to support artists whose work pushes the boundaries of creative nonfiction and these fellows demonstrate this fully. We were so inspired by how personal, expansive and bold their creative visions are and we can’t wait to see the ways they continue to develop their projects in this program.”

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Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab

BlackStar’s Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab is designed to uplift emerging and mid-career artists in the Greater Philadelphia area, supporting four projects by Black, Brown and Indigenous filmmakers with mentorship, funding and critical feedback over the course of a year-long program.

The four fellows – Andrew Bilindabagabo, Chisom Chieke, Kristal Sotomayor and Walé Oyéjidé – will receive mentorship throughout the fellowship including feedback on works-in-progress, advice on working with crew and career guidance from a working director. BlackStar will provide $50,000 in production funds and act as an executive producer on each short film created during the Lab, which will premiere at the BlackStar Film Festival in 2025.

The BlackStar Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab is presented with lead support from Black Experience on Xfinity, with additional support from Independence Public Media Foundation, William Penn Foundation and Wyncote Foundation.

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ABOUT THE NORTH STAR FELLOWS

Lokotah Sanborn

Lokotah Sanborn (Director, he/him) (b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist and community organizer. He grew up on the Penobscot Nation reservation near Old Town, Maine. His art is grounded in historical analysis and shaped by his experience in community organizing for land return, cultural continuity and Indigenous sovereignty. Lokotah works for the documentary film team Sunlight Media Collective, an organization documenting stories at the intersection of Wabanaki rights and environmental justice. His work has been featured in museums and galleries across the U.S. Lokotah is currently based in Portland, Maine.

Imani Dennison

Imani Dennison (Director/Producer, she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and award-winning filmmaker born in Louisville, Kentucky. Imani graduated from Howard University, where they studied Political Science and Photography. Through image-based mediums and sound, Imani interrogates hidden and counter histories centered around folklore, fantasy and fable. Imani has created commissioned documentary works for PBS, Tribeca, ITVS and Procter & Gamble. Imani is a 2022 Tribeca Queen Collective Directing Program grantee, where they directed their award-winning creative nonfiction film, Bone Black: Midwives vs the South. IImani is currently a 2023 Chicken & Egg/POV grant recipient, which awarded them the opportunity to produce their short creative nonfiction film, The People Could Fly, about the ritual of roller- skating and how roller rinks emerged as sanctuaries for Black culture in Louisville, Kentucky, which will screen as part of the Embodied Shorts Program on Saturday, August 3 at 8pm at BlackStar Film Festival.

Zac Manuel

Zac Manuel (Director, he/him) is a director and cinematographer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Zac’s work in documentary draws from complex legacies of Southern identity, with particular interest in the impacts of history and inheritance on Black communities. Zac’s cinematography credits include Alone (Sundance 2017 Jury Award Winner of Best Nonfiction Film), Time (2021 Academy Award nominee for Best Feature Documentary), BuckJumping and Descendant, which was released on Netflix. His directing credits include This Body, released on PBS, Nonstop, which was acquired by the Criterion Channel and Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, which was released on Max. Zac is currently directing the feature documentary, Ghetto Children, produced by XTR.

Rea Tajiri

Rea Tajiri (Director/Producer, she/her) is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist known for her poetic, non-traditional storytelling across installation, documentary, and experimental film. Showcasing early works at the Whitney Biennials of 1989, 1991 and 1993, her documentary History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige has received wide acclaim and is now featured on the Criterion Channel. Tajiri’s range extends from highlighting social movements in Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice to her dramatic debut Strawberry Fields, which premiered at Venice. Wisdom Gone Wild premiered at BlackStar, winning two awards, played in International Competition at 2022 IDFA and screened at DOC NYC 2022. The film had its national broadcast debut on POV ’s Season 36. Tajiri is a recipient of the 2023 Chicken and Egg Award and a 2022 Ford Foundation/JustFilms Fellowship.

ABOUT THE PHILADELPHIA FILMMAKER LAB FELLOWS

Andrew Bilindabagabo

Andrew Bilindabagabo is a Rwandan-born filmmaker and educator. He is the co-founder of INGOMA Films. His work aims to make the specific global and the global specific, using art to highlight the worthy and uplift the marginalized. Andrew graduated from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, and has taught filmmaking at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design and Lancaster Bible College. He has directed and produced narrative, commercial and documentary films around the world. Andrew’s work has appeared in Time, Forbes, ABC, New Times and more.

Kristal Sotomayor

Kristal Sotomayor is an acclaimed director, producer, journalist and curator based in Philadelphia. They are a 2023 DOC NYC Documentary New Leader Honoree and Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellow. Kristal’s upcoming film Don’t Cry For Me All You Drag Queens has screened at DocLands Film Festival and GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival. Kristal is in-development on a slate of short and feature-length directorial projects through their company Sotomayor Productions. Kristal’s film Expanding Sanctuary has screened at St. Louis International Film Festival, San Diego Latino Film Festival and will screen as part of the Statism Shorts Program on Thursday, August 1 at 1:30pm at BlackStar Film Festival.

Chisom Chieke

Chisom Chieke is a Nigerian-American multimedia artist and second-generation storyteller with a lifelong passion for narrative. She writes, directs and produces works that examine the past, present and future of radical love, acceptance and growth across diasporic communities. She is a 2nd Rounder for Sundance’s TV Development Track, Official Selection for the United We Heal Film Festival, OMWAN’EKHUI Film Program and Stowe Story Labs. Chisom is a member/alumna of the SuperSpecial TRIBE Writers’ Program.

Walé Oyéjidé

Walé Oyéjidé is a Nigerian-American filmmaker and designer who dispels bias with beauty. His narrative feature debut “BRAVO, BURKINA!” premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. His documentary “AFTER MIGRATION: CALABRIA” streamed on Criterion Channel.

His fashion designs appeared prominently in Marvel’s “BLACK PANTHER” and have been exhibited in museums around the globe. He employs fashion design as a vehicle to celebrate the perspectives of marginalized populations. Oyéjidé is a Fellow of: Sundance Feature Film, TED, Open Society Foundations and Google Image Equity. He is also a National Geographic Explorer.

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About BlackStar Projects

BlackStar Projects is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes as BlackStar Film Festival. They have since expanded into year-round programs, including film screenings, exhibitions, the annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab and a journal of visual culture.

The organization creates the spaces and resources needed to uplift the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists working outside the confines of genre. Their programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders and distributors. BlackStar is working towards a liberatory world in which a vast spectrum of Black, Brown and Indigenous experiences is irresistibly celebrated in arts and culture.

This August marks the 13th annual BlackStar Film Festival, a four-day event, featuring selections of experimental films, imaginative narrative works and groundbreaking documentaries hosted across multiple venues. From August 1-4 in the center of Philadelphia, the festival will feature artist panels, parties and numerous opportunities for filmmakers and film enthusiasts to engage with a wide network of artists working across various mediums.

About Points North

The Points North Institute is a launching pad for the next generation of documentary artists and storytellers.

Points North builds a unique, interdisciplinary community of filmmakers, artists, journalists, industry leaders and local audiences, forming a creative hub where stories and talent are discovered, collaborations are born, and the future of nonfiction media is shaped.

Our programs include the annual Camden International Film Festival and Points North Forum, as well as a growing suite of artist development initiatives: retreats, residencies, workshops, and fellowships that nurture the careers of diverse nonfiction storytellers and help them develop a stronger artistic voice.

About Black Experience on Xfinity

Black Experience on Xfinity is a first-of-its-kind destination of Black entertainment, movies, TV shows, news and more. Available at home on Xfinity X1 and Flex, and on-the-go with the Xfinity Stream app, the Black Experience on Xfinity features original and high-quality content from Comcast NBCUniversal and other major studios, in addition to content from many of Xfinity’s existing network partners, at no additional cost to Xfinity customers. The channel is the only one of its kind endorsed by the African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA), the world’s largest group of Black film critics that gives annual awards for excellence in film and television.
3 August, 2024
BlackStar Projects Releases Full Schedule of Programs for 2024 FilmFestival
BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists, is thrilled to release the full schedule of programs, jury and award nominees for the 2024 BlackStar Film Festival. This year’s festival will take place from August 1-4, 2024 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with additional screenings, parties and events at various venues in Center City Philadelphia, marking the 13th annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown and Indigenous people from around the world. The 2024 festival is presented with major support from the Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity.

Beyond film, the festival is an annual celebration of BlackStar’s community of artists and a one-of-a-kind gathering of diverse audiences centered on connection, discussion and learning. Almost every film screened during the 2024 festival will be followed by a Q&A, inviting the audience to participate in the dialogue. On The Daily Jawn Stage, presented by NEON, panels featuring industry experts – including Black on The Internet with Chica Andrade, Jazmin Jones, Kimberly Drew and Neema Githere Siphon as moderated by Sarah Jackson; Laugh to Keep from Crying with Felicia Pride, ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby and Rocheé Jeffrey as moderated by Bashir Salahuddin; and A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde Co-presented by Black Feminist Film School, with Ada Gay Griffin, JT Takagi and Michelle Parkerson, as moderated by Alexis Pauline Gumbs – will be held throughout the festival, challenging attendees to consider new perspectives as they engage with the work.

“With this year’s programming we not only create space for meaningful consideration of the festival’s remarkable films, but highlight this work in conversation with broader culture, our shared histories and the ongoing issues faced by our communities globally,” said founder and Chief Executive and Artistic Officer, Maori Karmael Holmes.

In addition to feature films, attendees will enjoy curated programs of short films aligned across different themes including comedy, fantasy, climate change and resistance; and the BlackStar Pitch, presented in partnership with Blackbird, in which six finalists will present their non-fiction projects to a panel of judges in a live competition for an opportunity to win $75,000 in production funds, with the winner to be announced at festival’s close. A majority of this year’s films will also stream virtually, with programs released at set times and made available for 48 hours.

BlackStar’s jury, listed in full below, will consider nominees for Best Experimental Film, Best Feature Documentary, Best Feature Narrative, Best Short Documentary and Best Short Narrative.

BlackStar will also host a mix of parties and community events throughout the weekend including the opening night party at World Cafe Live co-presented by Andscape; First Friday at the Barnes Foundation, featuring an evening of cocktails and music by Wayna, co-presented by SoHo House; a Filmmaker Mixer co-presented by American Documentary/POV, Black Public Media, ITVS and WORLD; and this year’s closing night party at STAR|Bolt.

“The films, panels and other programs we’ve curated this year are urgent, thrilling and necessary,” said Festival Director Nehad Khader. “I look forward to welcoming all of our brilliant filmmakers, panelists and other guests from around the world to Philadelphia for an enriching, expansive celebration.” All individual program tickets and festival passes are available here.

All access passes for the festival are available for purchase here and individual tickets for in-person and virtual screenings are available here. The full schedule of in-person programs is below (all times EST):

Major Spotlights:
- Dreams in Nightmares (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 7pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Life is Beautiful (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 5pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Dallas, 2019 (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 1:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 8pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
Feature Film Screenings:
- Othelo, The Great (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 11:30am – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Nowhere Near – Thursday, August 1 @ 12:30pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- The Queen of My Dreams (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 2:30pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Dis-Ease (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 3:30pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- barrunto (w/ Q&A) Thursday, August 1 @ 4:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Black Girls (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 5:30pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Family Tree (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 10:30am – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Twice into Oblivion – Friday, August 2 @ 11:30am – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Seeking Mavis Beacon (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 1:30pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Standing Above the Clouds – Friday, August 2 @ 3pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Our Land Our Freedom (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 5pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Life is Beautiful (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 5pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- After the Long Rains (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 8pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Rising up at Night – Saturday, August 3 @ 10:30am – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- You Don’t Have to Go Home, But (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 11am – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Mambar Pierette – Saturday, August 3 @ 12pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Dallas, 2019 (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 1:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Bring Them Home (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 2pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Songs from the Hole (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 2:30pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- A Mother Apart (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 5pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Inky Pinky Ponky – the Odd One Out + Grace (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 6pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- I Do Not Come To You By Chance (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 9pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Bye Bye Tiberias – Sunday, August 4 @ 10am – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- The New Man + Syppyt Suruktar Lost Letters – Sunday, August 4 @ 12:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- A Litany for Survival (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 2pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- The Strike (w Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 5pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- It Was All a Dream (w Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 6pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
Shorts Programs:
- Statism (w/ Q&A) – Thursday, August 1 @ 1:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Envisages (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 11am – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Extant (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 2pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Extrasensory (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 6pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Anthropogenic (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 8:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Discompose (w/ Q&A) – Friday, August 2 @ 9pm – Suzanne Roberts Theater
- Indomitable (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 5:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Embodied (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 8pm – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Propitiate (w/ Q&A) – Saturday, August 3 @ 8:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Anima (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 11am – Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center
- Spillikin (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 3pm – Suzanne Roberts Theatre
- Concatenate (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 3:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- Bilocation (w/ Q&A) – Sunday, August 4 @ 6:30pm – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Events & Panels:
- BlackStar Pitch – Wednesday, July 31 @ 4pm – Barnes Foundation **Pass Required**
- Engines for a New American Narrative co-presented by Color Congress, Thursday, August 1 @ 2:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- On Critics and Criticism co-presented by Critical Minded, Friday, August 2 @ 2:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- Black on the Internet co-presented by Firelight Media’s Beyond Resilience Series, Friday, August 2 @ 5:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- Yoga – Saturday, August 3 @ 9am, Sunday, August 4 @ 9am – Kimmel Center
- BlackStar Bazaar – Saturday, August 3 @ 11am – Kimmel Center
- Laugh to Keep from Crying – Saturday, August 3 @ 2:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- Duty of Care – Saturday, August 3 @ 5:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- Media-Making in Time of Genocide – Sunday, August 4 @ 2:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
- Spotlight Conversation: A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde co-Presented by Black Feminist Film School, Sunday, August 4 @ 5:30pm – The Daily Jawn Stage, Kimmel Center
Parties:
- Opening Night Party – Thursday, August 1 @ 9:30pm – World Cafe Live
- First Friday w/ Wayna – Friday, August 2 @ 6pm – Barnes Foundation
- Filmmaker Mixer Happy Hour – Saturday August 3 @ 7pm – The Wayward
- Closing Night Party – Sunday, August 4 @ 9:30pm – STAR|Bolt
BlackStar Juried Awards Categories & Nominees:

Best Feature Documentary

Nominees:
- A Mother Apart directed by Laurie Townshend
- Songs From the Hole directed by Contessa Gayles
- Twice Into Oblivion directed by Pierre Michel Jean
Jurors: Asad Muhammad, Tracy Rector, Ursula Liang

Best Short Documentary

Nominees:
- And Still, It Remains directed by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah
- The Archive: Queer Nigerians directed by Simisolaoluwa Akande
- The People Could Fly directed by Imani Dennison
- So That Tonight We Might See directed by Bea Hesselbart
- What Channel Is Love? directed by Michael Donte
- Wouldn’t Make It Any Other Way directed by Hao Zhou
Jurors: Nell Augustin, Reveca Torres, Zaina Bseiso

Best Feature Narrative

Nominees:
- After the Long Rains directed by Damien Hauser
- The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire directed by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich
- Mambar Pierrette directed by Rosine Mbakam
Jurors: Aseye Tamakloe, Jason Reynolds, Tayarisha Poe

Best Short Narrative

Nominees:
- Bloomed in the Water directed by Joanne Mony Park
- Boat People directed by Al’Ikens Plancher
- The Dawn directed by Alicia Mendy
- Enmity Djinn directed by Mohamed Echkouna
- The Flacalta Effect directed by Rochée Jeffrey
Jurors Dagmawi Woubshet, Guetty Felin, Lynnée Denise

Best Experimental Film

Nominees:
- A Stone’s Throw directed by Razan AlSalah
- barrunto directed by Emilia Beatriz
- Bisagras directed by Luis Arnías
- Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) directed by Suneil Sanzgiri
Jurors: Awa Konaté, Darol Olu Kae, David Hartt

Additional Awards
- Center for Cultural Power Climate Justice Award
- Philadelphia Filmmaker Award
- Shine Award for First-Time Filmmakers (Voted by BlackStar Members)
For more information on the festival and its programs, click here.

Major support for the festival is provided by the Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity. Black Experience on Xfinity is a first-of-its-kind destination that provides Black entertainment, movies, TV shows, news and more. Available at home on Xfinity X1 and Flex and on-the-go with the Xfinity Stream app, Black Experience on Xfinity features original and high-quality content from Comcast NBCUniversal and other major studios, in addition to content from many of Xfinity’s existing network partners, at no additional cost to Xfinity customers.

Additional support for the festival provided by: AmericanDocumentary/POV, American Friends Service Committee, Andscape, Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania, Black Public Media, The Center for Cultural Power, Color Congress, Creative Artists Agency, Critical Minded, Documentary.org, Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Eventive, Firelight Media, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, International Documentary Association, Impact Partners, Indego, ITVS, Kashif, NEON, NeueHouse, Peace Is Loud, PECO, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Points North Institute, PNC Arts Alive, Runway, Soho House, StoryCorps, Temple University School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, University of Pennsylvania Department of Cinema & Media Studies, Visit Philadelphia, Win Win Coffee, WORLD, WHYY and WURD.

BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Critical Minded, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Independence Public Media Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, McLean Contributionship, Mellon Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Perspective Fund, The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures, Pop Culture Collaborative, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation and Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners and a host of generous individual donors and organizations.
9 July, 2024
BlackStar Presents World Premiere of Shatara Michelle Ford’s Dreams in Nightmares

Dreams In Nightmares, Shatara Michelle Ford’s follow-up to their acclaimed debut Test Pattern, to world premiere Aug 1 as the opening night selection.

The film stars Tony-nominated Deneé Benton (The Gilded Age), Sasha Compere (Single Drunk Female), Charlie Barnett  (Russian Doll), Jasmin Savoy Brown (Yellow Jackets, Scream), Mars Storm Rucker (A Strange Loop), and Dezi Bing (Wig Out!).

BlackStar is thrilled to announce that Dreams In Nightmares, the sophomore feature from acclaimed filmmaker Shatara Michelle Ford, will have its world premiere as the Opening Night film at its annual film festival on August 1st in Philadelphia. The film is the follow-up to Ford’s debut feature Test Pattern, which also premiered to great acclaim at BlackStar Film Festival in 2019 and went on to be nominated for three Gotham Awards, including Best Picture, and three Independent Spirit Awards, including Best First Feature.

“It’s hard to imagine a more exciting film for the opening night of the 2024 festival,” said festival director Nehad Khader. “Imbued with a sense of radical possibility—Dreams in Nightmares is the kind of genre-defying work that our audience has long embraced, reflecting a collective vision of a more liberatory world.”

In Dreams In Nightmares, Ford puts their singular cinematic stamp on the American road movie. The film follows three Black queer femmes in their mid 30s on a road trip across the Midwestern United States in search of their friend who has seemingly disappeared off the grid.

“Five years after BlackStar world premiered my first film Test Pattern, catapulting my career and the careers of countless others on my team; it only felt fitting to return to the festival that embraced my work from the beginning,” said Ford. “Especially since Dreams In Nightmares was made most immediately for the BlackStar audience. The fact that Philadelphia is also where I reside, only takes the cake as I’m excited to share my very tender film with my community and celebrate this momentous achievement with my loved ones.”

The announcement of Ford’s film to open BlackStar Film Festival 2024 rounds out the festival’s already impressive lineup which features 96 films and 15 other world premieres. The full programming schedule and individual tickets will be released in July.

This year’s films as a whole engage with self-discovery, climate justice, immigrant rights, decolonization and queer liberation. Festival passes are on sale here.

27 June, 2024
BlackStar Projects Announces Mellon Foundation Grant

BlackStar Projects is pleased to announce the receipt of a grant in Arts & Culture from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. From 2024 through 2026, the Mellon Foundation will provide BlackStar $1,000,000 in funding, supporting the organization’s general operations.

Since 2012, the Philadelphia-based non-profit has celebrated important visual works produced by Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists and independent filmmakers. Through their visionary year-round programming, notably including the widely celebrated and highly anticipated annual BlackStar Film Festival, the organization has continually provided resources, catalyzed community, and celebrated creatives of color.

“We are thrilled to receive this grant from the Mellon Foundation to continue to provide Black, Brown and Indigenous moving image artists the resources, support and space they need to create visionary, necessary work,” said Maori Karmael Holmes, Chief Executive & Artistic Officer.

The Mellon Foundation grant provides BlackStar with the means to further its mission to uplift genre-defying visual art from the global majority. With this support, BlackStar will continue to create platforms and tools for artists of color to be the architects of a more liberatory world. In addition to focusing on the sustainability of their programming, the organization will focus resources on expanding its commitment to disability justice and towards maintaining a care-centered work environment for its staff of 21 full-time employees — a majority of whom are artists themselves.

About BlackStar

BlackStar Projects is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes as BlackStar Film Festival. They have since expanded into year-round programs, including film screenings, exhibitions, the annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab, and a journal of visual culture.

The organization creates the spaces and resources needed to uplift the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists working outside the confines of genre. Their programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders, and distributors. BlackStar is working towards a liberatory world in which a vast spectrum of Black, Brown and Indigenous experiences is irresistibly celebrated in arts and culture.

This August marks the 13th annual BlackStar Film Festival, a four-day event, featuring selections of experimental films, imaginative narrative works, and groundbreaking documentaries hosted across multiple venues. From August 1-4 in the center of Philadelphia, the festival will feature artist panels, parties, and numerous opportunities for filmmakers and film enthusiasts to engage with a wide network of artists working across various mediums.

For press inquiries, please reach out to the team at ALMA.

9 April, 2024
Filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman to Deliver Keynote on “Film Resistance” at BlackStar’s Greaves Seminar

(Palo Alto, CA — February 16, 2024) BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown, and Indigenous film and media artists, is thrilled to announce the subject and public ticket information for the keynote address of the fourth annual William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar. To be delivered by Neptune Frost co-director and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, “Film Resistance: 3rd Eye Cinema Praxis” will explore how “even the most fragile expression of resistance is a conductor in the transfer of power.” The 2024 Greaves Seminar is a three-day in-person gathering for Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists working in cinematic realms presented in partnership with the Stanford Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA), on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.

Tickets for the public program are $20 and available for purchase here. Registration for the Greaves Seminar overall is sold out and closed.

“We are honored to have the renowned and radical filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman to help us set the tone for our fourth Greaves Seminar,” said Maori Karmael Holmes, Chief Executive & Artistic Officer and Founder of BlackStar Projects. “While the rest of the Seminar is an intentionally intimate experience for attendees, we’re looking forward to this new partnership with the IDA as an opportunity to engage Stanford and the wider Bay Area community in an expansive public conversation.”

Anisia Uzeyman’s work has been celebrated for its revelatory approach to science fiction and deep critique of patriarchal capitalism. Anisia directed and acted in her debut experimental film Dreamstates, shot entirely on iPhone in 2016. Additionally, she has performed in starring roles in Tey (Aujourd’hui, 2012), and Ayiti Mon Amour (2016)—both of which screened at previous BlackStar film festivals.

The Seminar is named after visionary filmmakers William and Louise Greaves, who together co-produced landmark documentaries such as Symbiopsychotaxiplasm and Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey. Previous keynote addresses have been delivered by Nuotama Bodomo, Violeta Ayala, and Cauleen Smith. The weekend’s programming will also include workshops on afro-futurist audio films, making an immersive media project, a director’s commentary with All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt director Raven Jackson, and a special advance screening of Yance Ford’s POWER. Additionally, artists’ wellness will be prioritized, with yoga classes and mindfulness sessions, all taking place on Stanford’s campus.

The Greaves Seminar is produced by BlackStar Projects, home of the annual BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia. Last year’s 12th-anniversary Festival featured 97 films, including 19 world premieres, representing 31 countries. The lineup spanned narrative features and shorts, documentary features and shorts, and experimental films and showcased 19 world, 11 North America, 5 US, and 10 East Coast premieres. 47 films were Philadelphia premieres. In addition to presenting an array of live programs, panels, and in-person events and screenings, 2023 also marked BlackStar’s biggest festival to date and its first time taking place along Philadelphia’s central Broad Street. The 2024 BlackStar Film Festival will return August 1-4, in-person in Philadelphia and streaming worldwide. Additional information on ticketing, jurors, sponsors, programming, and the slate of films that will be featured at this year’s festival will be announced soon. Visit blackstarfest.org for more information.

BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Ford Foundation/JustFilms, Forman Arts Initiative, Gucci ChangeMakers Fund, Independence Public Media Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Michael Jordan Black Community Commitment Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Perspective Fund, Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Fund, PopCultureCollaborative, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous individual donors and organizations.

About BlackStar Projects

BlackStar Projects is the producer of BlackStar Film Festival, an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and global communities of color — showcasing films by Black, Brown, and Indigenous people from around the world. In addition to the acclaimed festival, BlackStar presents an array of programming across film and visual culture year-round and produces the journal Seen.

Press Contact

Imran Siddiquee
Chief Communications Officer
imran@blackstarfest.org

16 February, 2024
BlackStar Projects Announces 2024 BlackStar Film Festival Dates

(Philadelphia, PA — January 11, 2024) — BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown, and Indigenous film and media artists, is thrilled to announce that the next edition of its annual film festival will take place August 1–4, 2024. The 2024 BlackStar Film Festival will be held in a hybrid format, with festival-goers able to attend in-person or online around the world. This year marks the 13th edition of the BlackStar Film Festival. Submissions are now open through April 1 via FilmFreeway.

“As BlackStar evolves and branches into new realms as an organization, our dedication to uplifting the work of genre-defying Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists remains at the core of our mission,” said Maori Karmael Holmes, Chief Executive & Artistic Officer and Founder of BlackStar Projects. “The 13th edition of the film festival will continue this legacy as the premiere destination for discovering visionary films from the global majority.”

The 2024 BlackStar Film Festival will again take a hybrid format, with in-person screenings in downtown Philadelphia, alongside digital access. Information on additional Philadelphia events and venues is forthcoming.

Additionally, registration is open through February 9 for the 2024 William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar, taking place March 8–10, 2024. This three-day in-person gathering for Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists working in cinematic realms will be presented in partnership with the Stanford Institute for Diversity in the Arts, on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. This year’s speaker for the keynote address will be multi-hyphenate actor, playwright, and director Anisia Uzeyman. Uzeyman is the co-director and cinematographer of the sci-fi punk musical Neptune Frost. She has also starred in a number of films, including Tey (2012), Aujourd’hui (2012), and Ayiti Mon Amour (2016).

Seminar attendees can expect workshops, panels, and deep discussions about filmmaking practices. Additionally, artists’ wellness will be prioritized, with yoga classes and mindfulness sessions offered throughout the seminar’s programming.

BlackStar Projects is also thrilled to announce the appointment of Senior Director of Development and Operations Catherine Lee, a non-profit administrator and fundraiser who brings extensive experience with community-based arts and culture spaces. Prior to joining Blackstar Projects, Catherine most recently served as the Development Director at Fleisher Art Memorial in the Bella Vista neighborhood of South Philadelphia. Catherine also brings nearly a decade of experience in resource development, board engagement, program design, and development operations from her time at Asian Arts Initiative, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and work as a consultant managing an extensive portfolio of nonprofit clients.

Further BlackStar initiatives include Seen, a journal of film and visual culture, which recently published Issue 006 with Emmy-award-winning actor Colman Domingo featured on the cover. And Many Lumens, BlackStar’s signature podcast, which finds BlackStar founder Maori Karmael Holmes in dialogue with the most groundbreaking artists, changemakers, and cultural workers of today.

Last year’s 12th-anniversary BlackStar Film Festival featured 97 films, including 19 world premieres, representing 31 countries. The lineup spanned narrative features and shorts, documentary features and shorts, and experimental films and showcased 19 world, 11 North America, 5 US, and 10 East Coast premieres. 47 films were Philadelphia premieres. In addition to presenting an array of live programs, panels, and select in-person events and screenings, 2023 also marked BlackStar’s biggest festival to date and its first time taking place on Philadelphia’s Broad Street.

BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Ford Foundation/JustFilms, Forman Arts Initiative, Gucci ChangeMakers Fund, Independence Public Media Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Michael Jordan Black Community Commitment Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation

Perspective Fund, Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Fund, PopCultureCollaborative, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous individual donors and organizations.

Additional information on ticketing, jurors, sponsors, programming, and the slate of films that will be featured at this year’s festival will be announced soon. For overall information on BlackStar, including its festival and programs, visit blackstarfest.org.

About BlackStar Projects

BlackStar Projects is the producer of BlackStar Film Festival, an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and global communities of color — showcasing films by Black, Brown, and Indigenous people from around the world. In addition to the acclaimed festival, BlackStar presents an array of programming across film and visual culture year-round and produces the journal Seen.

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Ed Winstead

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Devon Ma

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Jane Drinkard

Account Coordinator, Cultural Counsel

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11 January, 2024