Late Submissions

The first deadline for this year's submissions has passed, but our late deadline window is open until April 23. Feature and short films of all genres—narratives, documentaries, and experimental—will be accepted. Films must be directed by a person of African descent or who otherwise identifies as Black, feature persons of African descent, or tell a story of the Black experience.

Read the full list of eligibility rules and submit your film:

https://filmfreeway.com/festival/BlackStarFest

Submissions for the Youth Program will be accepted until April 30. For the full list of eligibility requirements and to submit an entry visit: https://www.blackstarfest.org/youth-submissions/

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Partners with BlackStar for Rewind: 'Best of' Film Series

The Schomburg has partnered with BlackStar Film Festival, African Film Festival, Inc., and Urbanworld Film Festival, to spotlight a selection of narratives from each of these festivals that express diverse global black experiences by emerging and established independent filmmakers.The Schomburg has a rich history of collecting and preserving cinema of or featuring black talent across the African diaspora.

A MOVING IMAGE (dir. Shola Amoo, 74 min.), which had its East Coast premiere at the 2016 BlackStar, will be shown. The film is about gentrification in Brixton, incorporating fiction, documentary and performance art. We follow Nina, a young stifled artist, as she returns to her community after a long absence - she is soon painted as a symbol of gentrification. As she struggles with her own complicity, we follow her mission to create a piece of art that can bring her community together. On her journey we speak to real people affected by gentrification in Brixton, blurring the line between reality and fiction.

Monday, April 17 | 6:30PM-8:30PM

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

515 Malcolm X Boulevard

New York, NY 10037

Cost: FREE

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rewind-best-of-film-series-tickets-30234997692

BlackStar’s Artistic Director to Co-curate Flaherty’s “Out from Under” Film Series

The 2017 Fall Flaherty NYC series will be programmed by BlackStar’s founder and artistic director Maori Karmael Holmes and Charlotte Ickes, art historian and Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Opening on October 2, OUT FROM UNDER explores labor, environment, spirituality, and exile through films and videos that are keenly interested in the capacious concept of “the underground.” Densely layered, these subterranean and submarine spaces have prompted us to consider intersecting themes, including: the underground/undocumented/unacknowledged labor of immigrants, women, and people of color; the sunken spaces of the Global South, including the southern United States, territorialized and devalued as ‘below’ or ‘behind’ the rest of the world; and finally, the possibility of the underground as a space of confinement as well as liberation.

The Flaherty Film Seminar is a nonprofit media arts institution recognized as a leader in its support of the documentary genre and other independent film and video.

Call for Summer Interns

We’re looking for two candidates to join us! If you have a background in communications, a deep interest in media representation and film, and are looking to be involved with an organization that fosters diversity and inclusion, take a look at the job descriptions and send us your application!

Visit our Intern page to find the job descriptions for the Social Media Marketing and PR interns.

EVENTS

"In Between" Screening at the Gershman Y

An official selection for the Toronto International Film Festival, IN BETWEEN tells the story of three young Palestinian women sharing an apartment in the heart of Tel Aviv: a chain-smoking criminal lawyer with unwavering wit and wild magnetism, a DJ and bartender floating from gig to gig, and a religious Muslim student, engaged to be married. When the student’s fiancé becomes incensed by his future bride’s cosmopolitan existence and the liberal influences of her secular roommates, he entreats her to hasten their marriage, leave Tel Aviv, and assume her rightful role in the home. When she refuses, his violent rebuttal leaves her shaken, yet willing to kick the stakes up a notch.

Monday, May 1 | 7:30PM

Gershman Y

401 S. Broad Street

Philadelphia, PA

Cost: $13

Tickets: http://pjff.org/in-between/

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