BlackStar

Tag: Seminar

  • BlackStar Projects Announces Festival Dates & Winter Program

    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.

    A photo of four people posing in front of the step-and-repeat. They are smiling.
    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!

    A photo of Imran Siddiquee and Raven Jackson in conversation at the 2024 William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar.
    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.

    A still from One Magenta Afternoon shows three Black people. They are dressed in mesh clothes and studded necklaces. They are standing outside in a park like setting, the sun illuminates them from behind.
    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

  • Filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman to Deliver Keynote on “Film Resistance” at BlackStar’s Greaves Seminar

    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