Harlem International Film Festival opens with 3 world premieres and screens at three sites in the city
Harlem International Film Festival 2022 (Hi) today announced official selections for its 17th edition – a hybrid event taking place May 5-15.
The film festival will open with a gala presentation of three films making world premieres at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd.).
The films include Jamal Joseph’s A Gorgeous Mosaic, Ano Okero’s An American Street Mural in Harlem, and Myra Lewis’ Love is in the Legend.
Harlem International Film Festival Red Carpet
The red carpet in-person event is the first of three days of in-person screenings at the New York Public Library, followed by Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute (3227 Broadway) on Friday, May 6, and the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9 Theaters (2309 Frederick Douglass Blvd) on Saturday, May 7.
Harlem International Film Festival Film Lineup
This year’s film lineup once again celebrates and showcases relatively undiscovered international cinematic gems and local New York filmmaking talent.
59 Features, 27 shorts and music videos and 5 webisodes at Harlem International Film Festival
Hi’s lineup features 59 films (32 features, 27 shorts and music videos), and 5 webisodes. Other feature films making their world premieres are Julianne Fox’s Never Better, and Elias Matar’s What is Buried Must Remain.
Harlem International Film Festival’s Program Director, Nasri Zacharia, said. “We are excited to once again have screenings at the New York Public Library and Columbia University, which both hold wonderful memories for this film festival.
At the same time, we look forward to sharing so many wonderful films virtually to introduce our audiences throughout the state of New York to films from around the world. And, of course, we’ll continue our efforts to truly showcase the filmmakers and the setting of our beloved home neighborhoods of Harlem, Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, which we call the HUB.”
Thursday May 5 at Harlem International Film Festival
Opening on Thursday, May 5 at the New York Public Library, the Harlem International Film Festival will be a trio of films making their world premieres, including Jamal Joseph’s A Gorgeous Mosaic, which looks at former NYC mayor David Dinkins, the first African American to hold that post, and Ano Okera’s.
An American Street Mural in Harlem, which focuses on a group of women from Harlem who organized the community to create a Black Lives Matter street mural. in Myra Lewis’ Love is in the Legend explores the communities of NYC’s Paradise Garage, the Harlem Ball scene, and the House of Patricia Field. The House of Field Ball in September 1988 stands as the historic event to bring together the worlds of Seventh Avenue fashion, downtown club culture, and the Harlem Houses.
Known as “the Ball that changed it all,” the film highlights the artistry that introduced voguing and Harlem Ball culture to the world, paying homage to those who paved the way.
Friday May 6 at Harlem International Film Festival
Friday, May 6 the film festival screens at Columbia University with three featured films. Philip Knowlton’s Clarisa tells the story of Clarisa Alayeto, a community activist from the Mott Haven section of the Bronx who set out on a personal mission to improve health care for people in the Bronx.
Staying with the health and health care theme, Camille Bradshaw’s Let’s Talk Mental Health in Color is a compilation of episodes from a documentary series of the same name about the effects of socio-political and economic policies, unaddressed and misdiagnosed childhood mental health disruptions in young people of color.
Then to end things on an uplifting note, Aminah Salaam’s Swimming Against the Current shines a light on the seniors of the “Harlem Honeys and Bears” Synchronized Swim Team.
Saturday May 7 at Harlem International Film Festival
For the third day of in-person screenings, the Harlem International Film Festival returns to the AMC Magic Johnson Harem 9 Theaters.
Two features are highlighted, including Crystal Lee Kwok’s Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South, in which Kwok digs into her Grandmother’s past growing up Chinese in Augusta, Georgia’s Black neighborhood during Jim Crow.
Cat Brewer’s Sign the Show brings together entertainers, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) community, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters to discuss accessibility for all at live performances. The Saturday screenings will also include two select shorts programs.
Two films making their world premieres as part of Hi’s virtual offerings are Julianne Fox’s dramedy Never Better about a recent college grad with Cystic Fibrosis living through the pandemic summer of 2020, and Elias Matar’s supernatural drama What is Buried Must Remain. The film follows three young filmmakers who are confronted by angry spirits as they attempt to make a documentary about a French industrialist, accused of murdering his family.
Harlem International Film Festival
For Film festival passes, tickets, and more information on the Harlem International Film Festival go to http://HarlemFilmFestival.org
2022 Harlem International Film Festival official selections
Opening Night Selections
A Gorgeous Mosaic World Premiere
Director: Jamal Joseph
Country: US, Running Time: 25 min
A portrait of David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City.
An American Street Mural in Harlem World Premiere
Director: Ano Okera
Country: US, Running Time: 39 min
Against the backdrop of health disparities and systemic injustice during the COVID-19 pandemic, Harlem-based women rally a historically Black community to come together and create a contemporary Black Lives Matter street mural and public exhibition that no longer exists.
Love is in the Legend World Premiere
Director: Myra Lewis
Country: US, Running Time: 110 min
Outsiders find belonging through music, fashion, and dance in the freedom of 1980s New York. An underground story about the confluence of the Paradise Garage, the Harlem Ball scene, and the formation of the House of Patricia Field, this immersive experience documents the House of Field Grand Street Ball of September 1988. This event brought together the worlds of Seventh Avenue Fashion, downtown club culture, and the Harlem Houses, paying homage to those who paved the way.
Friday Screenings at Columbia University
Clarisa
Director: Philip Knowlton
Country: US, Running Time: 17 min
In 2016, the Bronx was ranked “the county in New York with the worst health outcomes” or 62nd of all 62 counties in NY in terms of health. This documentary tells the story of Clarisa Alayeto, a community activist from the Mott Haven section of the Bronx who — inspired by her Grandmother — sets out on a mission to break that cycle.
Let’s Talk Mental Health in Color
Director: Camille Bradshaw
Country: US, Running Time: 56 min
Let’s Talk Mental Health in Color is a docu-series that examines, with a focus on the effects of socio-political and economic policies, unaddressed and misdiagnosed childhood mental health disruptions in youths of color. It aims to serve as a dire call to action for a shift in normalizing mental health care as routine health care with efforts demanding direct confrontation with past and present systemic and social policies. From homelessness and gun violence to bullying and sexual abuse, each episode delves deeply into the ramifications of unaddressed childhood trauma and inaccessibility to effective mental health care. Episode 1 “Let’s Talk Mental Health in Color” is a compilation of upcoming episodes.
Swimming Against the Current
Director: Aminah Salaam
Country: US, Running Time: 55 min
As most of us dread the idea of getting “older” the seniors of the “Harlem Honeys and Bears” Synchronized Swim Team inspire us to live our best lives regardless of age.
Saturday Screenings at the AMC Magic Johnson Theatre Harlem 9
Blurring the Color Line: Chinese in the Segregated South
Director: Crystal Lee Kwok
Country: US, Running Time: 77 min
Digging into her Grandmother’s past growing up Chinese in Augusta, Georgia’s Black neighborhood during Jim Crow, director Crystal Kwok complicates the black and white narrative while exposing uncomfortable truths behind today’s Afro-Asian tensions.
Preceded by
Shot in Italy
Director: Mirko Bischofberger
Country: Switzerland, Running Time: 16 min
A filmmaker from Sierra Leone arrives in Southern Italy after fleeing from his country and enduring dangers in Libya. Once stranded, he teams up with an Italian filmmaker and other refugees to continue his dream of making movies. Will he make it?
Sign the Show
Director: Cat Brewer
Country: US, Running Time: 96 min
The film brings together entertainers, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) community, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters to discuss accessibility at live performances in a humorous, heartfelt, and insightful way.
Saturday Short Cuts #1
Uptown Shorts From Harlem to the Bronx
(TRT: 66 min)
B-Box
Director: Xavier Michael Griffiths
Country: US, Running Time: 10 min
Two roommates engaged in a bizarre high stakes game try to keep things under control when one of them invites a woman over to their apartment.
En Avant East Coast Premiere
Director: Sarah Jean Williams
Country: US, Running Time: 13 min
The internal struggle of a Black ballerina with self-acceptance as she faces racism in a white-dominated art form.
If My Voice Rang Louder Than My Skin East Coast Premiere
Director: Kyra Peters
Country: US, Running Time: 4 min
The story of a teenage boy who craves a life where his skin no longer affects his daily life or how others perceive him. Using 2D animation, the film follows him through the streets of the Bronx, trying to unite his community’s voice through music to rally against the divisive hate against color.
Lowlife
Director: Alexandra Hinojosa
Country: US, Running Time: 9 min
Alina is being haunted by a presence she must confront in order to make a break from her former life.
The Other Talk
Director: Sultan Ali, Jr.
Country: US, Running Time: 4 min
When a teenage girl plans to go to a protest, she must first confront her protective father.
Pécho
Directors: Luis Villanueva, Pier Pacolo, Mason Coburn
Country: Philippines, Running Time: 2 min
A bilingual French-English music video inspired by classic French disco and world cinema from Hong Kong to Manila to New York— a non-linear narrative drives the film’s plot as it paints the artists within an imaginative, hallucinatory vignette of love and betrayal.
Silent Partner
Director: Aristotle Torres
Country: US, Running Time: 16 min
Silas Jones is an accomplished, Black trial attorney on the cusp of making partner at a white-shoe law firm. Upon successfully defending a white woman charged with murdering a Black teen, Silas comes to a crossroads with his wife Kosi, an equally accomplished professor, as they prepare to attend the firm’s celebration. As the night progresses, Silas questions the legitimacy of his promotion. Will he make the ultimate sacrifice?
Sheila
Director: Gabri Christa
Country: US, Running Time: 8 min
A dancer blows out a candle and finds herself in a magical world of memory, dance, and presence. Featuring Sheila Rohan, one of the founding members of Dance Theater of Harlem.
Saturday Short Cuts #2
Black Love Matters
(TRT: 91 min)
An American Street Mural in Harlem World Premiere
Director: Ano Okera
Country: US, Running Time: 39 min
Against the backdrop of health disparities and systemic injustice during the COVID-19 pandemic, Harlem-based women rally a historically Black community to come together and create a contemporary Black Lives Matter street mural and public exhibition that no longer exists.
Black.Eco
Director: Shauna Davis
Country: US, Running Time: 12 min
Using movement as a force, Black.Eco is a dance film that dives into the many worlds that exist within a Black woman.
Black Love Manifesto
Director: Liza Jessie Peterson
Country: US, Running Time: 20 min
Black Love Manifesto: A Suite in 5 movements uses photography, video, poetry and music to illuminate and celebrate the beauty and power of Blackness.
Black Rainbow International Premiere
Director: Zig Dulay
Country: Philippines, Running Time: 20 min
An aeta boy chases his dream of going to school in order to learn how to read the legal documents given to their community and to understand why they are being forced to give up their ancestral lands.
Virtual Screening Selections
NARRATIVE FEATURES
Broken Blooms East Coast Premiere
Director: Luisito Lagdameo Ignacio
Country: Philippines, Running Time: 103 min
Broken Blooms explores the travails of a young man dealing with the challenges of a blooming young marriage and his carefree and careless attitude towards morality & friendship, which is tested to the brink at the time the world cringes in the claws of a global pandemic.
Maya And Her Lover
Director: Nicole Sylvester
Country: US, Running Time: 106 min
Maya, stifled by complicated memories of her overbearing father and on the verge of becoming a recluse, begins a sexual relationship with a much younger man whose dark side impedes his journey as he navigates his way as a Black Man in America.
Never Better World Premiere
Director: Julianne Fox
Country: US, Running Time: 81 min
Terese is a recent college grad with Cystic Fibrosis living through the summer of 2020. She combats the time loop of quarantine with an unstoppable internal dialogue, a healthy dose of sarcasm, and lots of beer. When her self-interested roommate returns and fails to practice safe social distancing, Terese finds that boredom may be the least of her worries.
Person Woman Man Camera TV
Director: Niav Conty
Country: US, Running Time: 77 min
Barack Obama was starting his second term, hope was more than just a hashtag, and Sam met Samantha. Seven years later, 2020 happened. A tragicomedy about race, romance, and remembering.
Raise Your Hand
Director: Jessica Rae
Country: US, Running Time: 91 min
Gia and her best friend Lila survived a rough childhood in a neighborhood where every kid has a sad story to tell. Now, as teenagers, Gia struggles to use her gift of writing to reclaim what the world has brutally taken away.
Ranch Water
Director: Sophie Miller
Country: US, Running Time: 80 min
The Sterling sisters and their once close-knit group of friends reunite for a weekend at the family ranch in small town Texas before it’s sold. Long simmering conflicts come to a head as they confront the uncertainty of their lives without the connection of home to bind each other.
The Ugly Truth
Director: Krishna Ashu Bhati
Country: Germany, Running Time: 96 min
Mona, her husband Theo, and daughter Hanna live in an idyllic villa on the outskirts of Berlin. When the attractive 18 years old daughter of a friend comes to visit, the profound problems and fragility of the small family reveal, as a tragic downward spiral takes its inevitable course.
The Walk
Director: Daniel Adams
Country: US, Running Time: 104 min
In 1974, a Boston Irish cop confronts fierce social pressure after being assigned to protect black high school students as they are bused into all-white South Boston High.
What is Buried Must Remain World Premiere
Director: Elias Matar
Country: Lebanon, Running Time: 95 min
Set in present-day Lebanon, What Is Buried Must Remain is a modern ghost story with ancient roots. When three young filmmakers set out to make a documentary about a French industrialist, accused of murdering his family, they are confronted by supernatural forces engaged in a war for the very soul of the land.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Cinema and Sanctuary – Hans Richter & America’s First Documentary Film
Director: Dave Davidson
Country: US, Running Time: 60 min
Cinema and Sanctuary tells the astonishing and little-known story of the first documentary film school in America. The Institute of Film Techniques was founded in 1941 at The City College of New York to teach Americans to make films in response to the Nazi propaganda machine that produced such terrifying epics as Triumph of the Will. The Film Institute thrived under the watchful eye of filmmaker and DADAist, Hans Richter. Having just escaped from Nazi-controlled Europe himself, Richter assembled a team of iconic social documentary makers, including Robert Flaherty, John Grierson, Leo Hurwitz, Willard Van Dyke and Joris Ivens. Despite its enormous impact, short-sighted college administrators claimed that the film school belonged “in trade schools” and not at a senior college. When the president vowed to shut the Institute down, outraged students responded in protest, staging a ‘cinematic invasion’ of his house in the spirit of Hans Richter’s DADA political theatre.
City of a Million Dreams
Director: Jason Berry
Country: US, Running Time: 89 min
Why do we dance for the dead? To most people, jazz funerals are a mystery. In 2005, writer and videographer Deb Cotton leaves “hard-hearted Hollywood” for New Orleans, and becomes a chronicler of the parading club culture spawned by the legacy of funerals with music. This tradition is carried by the prolific clarinetist Michael White, renowned for playing “the widow’s wail” in sorrowful dirges. When Hurricane Katrina hits, White loses everything in the catastrophic flooding. In his struggle to rebuild, White becomes an everyman, embodying the resurrection spirit of jazz funerals. Cotton follows the parading culture through the aching recovery, while White explores his ancestral roots in the dawn of jazz. With burial pageants as a mirror on the city’s history, the film hits a violent turning point at a parade shooting, plunging Deb Cotton and Michael White into a search for the city’s soul.
Dying for Gold
Director: Catherine Meyburgh, Richard Pakleppa
Country: South Africa, Running Time: 99 min
South Africa’s wealth and white privilege has been funded by large-scale maiming and killing of people by the gold mining industry. Today gold miner communities across Southern Africa have nothing to show for the wealth they produced except extreme rural underdevelopment and the world’s worst epidemic of TB and silicosis. Through testimonies from communities in mining families throughout Southern Africa and extensive use of contrasting archive materials Dying for Gold tells the story of how we have arrived at this extraordinary situation.
Ela: Breaking Boundaries
Director: Swapna Kurup
Country: US, Running Time: 53 min
New Jersey based artist Ela Shah migrated from India to the United States in the early 70s. Finding herself at the crossroads of social and cultural transition, Ela’s practice took new meaning and form. This documentary intimately looks at Ela’s body of work, spanning four decades, against the backdrop of personal stories that have shaped her practice.
Exclusion U
Director: Ginger Gentile
Country: US, Running Time: 85 min
Exclusion U asks if the USA is a meritocracy by examining the connection between admissions & endowment hoarding of Ivy League universities. We ask experts, college administrators and students if schools are welcoming applicants from all social strata or, in the words of Former Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman, “Opportunities in education are not equal…And what this is going to create in America is a different kind of aristocracy.” As endowments grow, how can the Ivy League expand educational opportunities?
Girls for Future
Director: Irja von Bernstorff
Country: Germany, Running Time: 82 min
Girls for Future follows four girls, aged between 11 and 14 years, from Senegal, Indonesia, Australia and India who fight for a better future. All are directly affected by the consequences of environmental destruction: Senegal stands for the global water crisis, Indonesia for plastic waste pollution, India for the agricultural crisis and in Australia we witness the fatal destruction in the oceans and on land through climate change.
Hiroshima: City of Water
Director: Chris John Brooke
Country: UK, Running Time: 68 min
In Hiroshima water is the element that binds life and death. The seven rivers that flow through the city gave it the name City of Water. Scattered around this huge metropolitan city are monuments to the dead – those who perished both in the moment, and also the aftermath, of the detonation of a nuclear weapon by American forces on 6th August 1945. These monuments mark the places where schools, hospitals and municipal buildings once stood – remnants of the old city tucked away in the shadows of the towering steel and glass buildings of the new Hiroshima. At these monuments, visitors give offerings of water to those who perished; those who begged for water to sooth their scorched mouths and those who threw themselves into the rivers to relieve their burning skin and subsequently drowned. For Hiroshi Hara, these are the ‘Rivers of Souls’. Places where he makes tribute to the dead by painting with what he calls the ‘spirit water’ – water from the rivers he describes as being covered by a carpet floating corpses.
Landis, Just Watch Me
Director: Eric Cochran
Country: US, Running Time: 95 min
In partnership with Challenged Athletes Foundation, comes the inspiring true story of Landis Sims, a 15-year old baseball player born with quad-congenital limb deficiency, which means he is missing both hands and feet. Landis defies the odds on and off the baseball diamond every day. Witness the 8-year journey of Landis growing from a plucky little leaguer into a dedicated young man set on achieving his goal of motivating kids to live without limits. Along the way, he gains wisdom and inspiration from Major League Baseball’s best, including pitcher Joe Musgrove and Manager Joe Girardi.
Leveling Lincoln
Director: Arden Teresa Lewis
Country: US, Running Time: 79 min
Leveling Lincoln interviews the children who lived the history behind the landmark desegregation case of Taylor vs. Board of Education of New Rochelle, NY from1960-1964. This case branded the city the “Little Rock of the North” in the press, leveled an entire school, and brought the Civil Rights struggle to the “tolerant” North East. The Supreme Court made a covenant with the minority parents of our nation that they could seek a better education in every school district. With the best of intentions, they sent their small children into white schools. What were the intended and unintended consequences?
Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Director: Ann Kaneko
Country: US, Running Time: 84 min
From the majestic peaks of the snow-capped Sierras to the parched valley of Payahuunadü, “the land of flowing water,” Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust poetically weaves together memories of intergenerational women. Native Americans, Japanese-American WWII incarcerees, and environmentalists form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from Los Angeles.
My Mother’s Son
Director: Jose Batista-Ayala
Country: US, Running Time: 87 min
My Mother’s Son is a raw and deeply personal look at the rocky relationship between the filmmaker and his mother Josie, who in January 2021 celebrated 24 years of being heroin free.
What started out as an inspirational piece for those struggling with addiction, this emotional documentary turned into a form of healing for this family.
Samira’s Dream/Ndoto ya Samira
Director: Nino Tropiano
Country: Ireland, Running Time: 88 min
The story of a Zanzibari woman, Samira, who aspires to have a family like all of her friends, but is also determined to pursue higher education and a career. Throughout seven years of her life, social pressure and the respect of traditions constantly confront her to choose one over the other.
Stateless
Director: Michéle Stephenson
Country: Haiti, Running Time: 94 min
In 2013, the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929. The ruling rendered more than 200,000 people stateless, without nationality, identity, or a homeland. Michèle Stephenson’s documentary, Stateless, traces the complex tributaries of history and present-day politics, as state-sanctioned racism seeps into mundane offices, living room meetings, and street protests. Anyone defending marginalized groups faces threats of violence. In this dangerous climate, a young attorney named Rosa Iris mounts a grassroots campaign, challenging electoral corruption and advocating for social justice. As Rosa balances her congressional run with her dedication to her family and community, the full scope of her fight is revealed.
The Rumba Kings
Director: Alan Brain
Country: Peru, Running Time: 95 min
The Rumba Kings celebrates the epic quest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an African nation that fought colonial oppression, found freedom, and forged a new identity through music. In the 1950s, when the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a Belgian colony, a generation of Congolese musicians fused traditional African rhythms with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying beat of Congolese Rumba.
Tonton Manu
Director: Patrick Puzenat, Thierry Dechilly
Country: France, Running Time: 90 min
Composer, musician, journalist, an ambassador of the Francophone world, honored and distinguished around the world; Manu Dibango has remained himself wherever he may find himself. The film follows him during a five year span, traveling from Paris to Douala, from Kinshasa to Rio, from New York to Saint Calais, a small village in La Sarthe where he spent part of his childhood, a curious, open, joyful, honest and caring Manu Dibango crossed fellow brethren.
Truth Tellers
Director: Richard Kane
Country: US, Running Time: 58 min
Truth Tellers is a film about political artist Robert Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth”, a project that explores our country’s ongoing struggle to live up to our democratic ideals with those who are not afraid to speak the truth nor challenge the status quo.
Ushiku
Director: Thomas Ash
Country: Japan, Running Time: 87 min
Ushiku takes viewers deep into the psychological and physical environment inhabited by foreign detainees in one of the largest immigration detention facilities in Japan. On the eve of Japan’s recent–and highly contentious–immigration reform efforts, the filmmaker eludes press embargoes the government has imposed on its immigration facilities, bringing viewers into immediate contact with the detainees, many of whom are refugees seeking asylum.
Why We Walk
Director: Eric Bishop
Country: US, Running Time: 55 min
Why We Walk follows the journey of three Black men, from across the globe, united to empower and de-stigmatize urban communities of color and their participation in the great outdoors. After years of city exploration, The Urban Hikers strive to introduce the power of walking to a community that has historically been underrepresented in this space. Inspired by the story of the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown, The Urban Hikers embark on a life-changing backpacking pilgrimage from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia- the birthplace of the Civil War- to the nation’s capital in Washington, DC.
WEBISODES
Bronx’ish
Director: Danielle Alonzo
Country: US, Running Time: 9 min
Two Ricans in a Bronx apartment during a pandemic…pray for us.
How Did That Happen?!
Director: Laurence Shanet
Country: US, Running Time: 27 min
Two mismatched New Yorkers become roommates and thru comic trials, tribulations, and hi-jinks, a makeshift family is formed. A series that seeks to expose and poke fun at the hidden biases we all share and live with every day.
How to Hack Birth Control
Director: Sassy Mohen
Country: US, Running Time: 27 min
Told through the sharp wit and perky charm of the narrator Ruth (Xanthe Paige), this webisode takes a run at ‘not supposed to talk about,’ scenarios and answers all of the questions women truly want to know, but are taught to be too afraid to ask.
Lost/Found
Director: Brian Christopher White
Country: US, Running Time: 24 min
After a storm wreaks havoc over a small town in Georgia, a writer on a deadline makes an ominous discovery in the backyard of his rural vacation rental.
QauranDream!
Director: Jeffrey Elizabeth Copeland
Struggling NYC comedy writer Jerri Cooper is broke AF and down on her luck, so when corona rots the Big Apple, the SNL-wannabe flees to her hometown of Atlanta using the pandemic as a cover, and dreams up her own reality! Can Jerr get back to the Big City before her quaran-dream becomes a quaran-nightmare?!
SHORTS
American Justice on Trial
Directors: Andrew Abrahams, Herb Ferrette
Country: US, Running Time: 40 min
The film looks at the sensational 1968 murder trial of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton. If the Newton jury came back with the widely expected death penalty verdict, national riots were anticipated. Instead, a system-changing defense revolutionized the rules of a fair trial, and an unusually diverse jury delivered a shocking verdict that reverberates today.
Birdie East Coast Premiere
Director: Andrew Edison
Country: US, Running Time: 13 min
A troubled teen takes his childhood babysitter hostage after she uncovers his deadly plan.
Just a Moment
Director: Djigul Diarra
Country: France, Running Time: 28 min
Fousseini, a young painter, struggles to make a living from his passion. Suffering from not being supported by his family, his only moments of breathing come when he reunites with Assata, a young Mauritanian student finishing her studies in France, but Assata hides a heavy secret.
Last Laugh
Director: Paul Lewis Anderson
Country: US, Running Time: 25 min
Last Laugh is a noir mystery-comedy about a young man who moves into a slummy New York City apartment with an unexpected occupant, the intolerable ghost of Maury Zuckerman, a legendarily bad stand-up comedian.
Out of Tune
Director: Portlynn Tagavi
Country: US, Running Time: 15 min
Stigmatized since childhood by her love of the rock band Journey, Maya finds her voice in a world where she doesn’t feel “Black enough.”
Pat! A Revolutionary Black Molecule
Director: Lupe Tofaceit
Country: US, Running Time: 9 min
Utilizing the life of a Black woman born into segregation in 1926 we learn through her dynamic way of being many things. Radical therapy has a perspective that shows you how to put your problems into the world of capitalism and why knowing this can save your life.
Resurrection! Airto Moreira & the Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Director: Dale Djerassi
Country: US, Running Time: 21 min
Two powerful forces in the world of jazz come together in this lively film. Airto Moreira, a world-renowned percussionist from Brazil meets the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band on Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans.
The Mason Ring
Director: Terry Dawson
Country: US, Running Time: 15 min
It’s a late summer night in South Los Angeles, and teenage brothers Earl and Antoine are making a rather unusual late-night drop. On the eve of their Grandfather’s funeral, they’re tasked with delivering his mason ring to the funeral home in a last-ditch effort to get it on his finger before the service the following morning.
Think Like a Filmmaker
Director: Eli Berliner
Country: US, Running Time: 5 min
Eli Berliner turns the camera on his father, Alan, a personal documentary filmmaker, whose new body of work approaches sculpture through the eyes of a filmmaker.
When I Get Grown – Reflections of a Freedom Rider
Director: Chris Preitauer
Country: US, Running Time: 32 min
Trauma experienced by a seven-year-old sets him on a course to become a civil rights legend and change the course of a nation.
Wildcat
Director: Cat Dale
Country: US, Running Time: 15 min
Mary Todd Lincoln, who is committed to an insane asylum by her last living relative, tries to prove her sanity with the help of a medium and her dead son. Based on true events.
Harlem International Film Festival (Hi) today announced official selections for its 17th edition – a hybrid event taking place May 5-15