Posts in 'Film'

For the film "Beautiful Struggle," a documentary series about three married couples in various leadership roles who strive to sustain healthy marriages while navigating personal and professional obstacles, and making an impact in their communities

In rapidly gentrifying North Philadelphia, two genius Black siblings, at risk of eviction, begin doing the coursework of local college students in exchange for cash. When one of their clients, a white woman, goes viral from an essay they wrote, the siblings are faced with a moral dilemma: allow their client to publicly use their voices, or be caught at the center of a cheating scandal.

This "Untilted" documentary explores the culinary culture of immigrant farm workers that comprise the backbone of the US food system and power the Vermont dairy farm industry. The farmers' lack of access to transportation, coupled with the presence of ICE in their communities and the fear of deportation, means that accessing ingredients to prepare traditional meals is difficult or impossible. The film also follows the story of an underground network of women who bring popular Central and South American ingredients to rural dairy farms throughout the state, connecting farmworkers back to homemade meals and to one another.

$30,000 will go towards the final cut of the film as well as film festival expenses. The remaining $1,570 will go towards BlackStar’s fiscal sponsor fees.

To support Reparation Station, a series of short video episodes that explore the idea of reparations in both practical and absolutely fantastical ways. Based on the Latin root of the word, 'repare': to make ready again, this series asks how Black artists are getting ready again.

A supernatural sci-fi film that relieves a Black family from a misunderstood past. Traveling with her mom and dad to her late grandfather’s home for the first time, Amala, a curious, differently-abled 10-year-old girl downloads a new update to her smart glasses that manipulates a still image to move backward and forward. As the grieving family argues about selling the house and placing their senile great-uncle into a nursing home, Amala puts her new technology to the test and discovers a family secret hidden within her living great-great-uncle's library of family photos.

A short documentary that uses Afro-Caribbean dance, whining, and Black American dance styles to analyze respectability politics, pressures to accommodate whiteness, and criticism of sexual expression imposed on Black people. The film will intercut archival footage, expert opinion from elder dancers, as well as testimony from Black American and Caribbean people who are familiar with these dances. These interviews will be framed with some of the interview subjects dressing up to go to a dance party with Black American and Caribbean music.

A film profile about Eric McPherson, a prolific jazz drummer born and raised in New York. The film will explore the history of jazz in relation to New York City, revealing how an immersive jazz and hip hop culture of the 60's and 70's directly influenced McPherson's work. In comparison to the commodification of these cultures today, the filmmaker will explore how talent needs to be nurtured both inside and outside a classroom.

To support an experimental study circle, research collective and grounding space for deep reflection and interpretation of the life and legacy of the anti-fascist Trinidadian cultural worker, Claudia Jones. The project will culminate in a film based on the eponymous figure, who was a Harlem based labor organizer, journalist, mentee of W.E.B DuBois, communist party leader, ‘proto-feminist’ and author of “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Women” (1949). Jones’ activism and writing led to multiple arrests, extensive FBI surveillance through the Smith and McCarran Acts, and her imprisonment and deportation to the United Kingdom. During her time in London, Jones deepened her relationship with the burgeoning West Indian, African and South Asian communities, created the West Indian Gazette and founded the first diasporic Caribbean Carnival—the Notting Hill Carnival.

To create a documentary, as part of The Philadelphia Orchard Project, about how communities that lack access to fresh food can develop, maintain and harvest their own fruits & vegetables through community owned gardens and orchards planted in vacant lots, schoolyards, and other urban spaces.