Short Narrative

A Morsel of Love

An old man’s monotonous days are mostly spent on a house’s rooftop facing an old city. Until he hears a …

  • Runtime: 12 minutes
  • Country: Iran
  • Director: Helia Behrooz, Sana Norouzbaki
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Following the preventable deaths of their loved ones due to childbirth complications, two families galvanize activists, birth-workers and physicians to …

  • Runtime: 87 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Paula Eiselt, Tonya Lewis Lee
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Feature Documentary

Ãjãí: The Headball Game of the Myky and Manoki

Ãjãí is a fun game where only the players’ heads can touch the ball. This practice, shared by a few …

  • Runtime: 48 minutes
  • Country: Brazil
  • Director: Typju Myky, André Lopes
  • Premiere: United States
Short Narrative

Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice

A young shaman must face her first test– a trip underground to visit Kannaaluk, The One Below, who holds the …

  • Runtime: 20 minutes
  • Country: Canada
  • Director: Zacharias Kunuk
Experimental

Another Story (with esperanza spalding)

gystere and esperanza are going to the center of the Earth To confront the Intergalactic Colonizer, master of the Europe …

  • Runtime: 6 minutes
  • Country: France
  • Director: Adrien Gystere Peskine, Anthony Peskine
  • Premiere: World
Short Documentary

Barry the Beekeeper

An intergenerational tale about Barry, a Jamaican-born beekeeper who has been the heart of his local community in Liverpool for …

  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Director: Ikram Ahmed
  • Premiere: East Coast

In the early 1960s, a budding soul music label brings in a savvy group of local teenage musicians to offer …

  • Runtime: 18 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Julian Turner
  • Premiere: World

Directed by Elle Moxley, Black Beauty is a visual diary that traces Elle’s story in her own words she reconnects …

  • Runtime: 26 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Elle Moxley
  • Premiere: East Coast
Experimental

Blackalachia

Blackalachia is a film by Moses Sumney featuring a live conceptual performance with a 7-piece band atop the Blue Ridge …

  • Runtime: 67 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Moses Sumney
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

BODY LANGUAGE

BODY LANGUAGE is a candid conversation about body image and experience for Black gay, queer, and same gender loving men. …

  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: ODU ADAMU
  • Premiere: United States

The film takes an ethnographic look into the life of a bonded labourer in a remote tribal village in central …

  • Runtime: 56 minutes
  • Country: India
  • Director: Shobhit Jain
  • Premiere: World

By Water, is a documentary that was initiated when my brother left an unexpected message on my phone 3 years …

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: USA
  • Director: Iyabo Kwayana
  • Premiere: World

Suburban couple Calvin and Lisa document their experience of a trial cloning experiment in a mockumentary short film. The film …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Letia Solomon
  • Premiere: World
Experimental

Conspiracy

On the occasion of her pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Simone Leigh co-directs a film with Madeleine Hunt – Ehrlich …

  • Runtime: 24 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Simone Leigh, Madeleine Hunt - Ehrlich
  • Premiere: North America
Experimental

Echolocation

Assembled through field recordings, voice messages, and photographs, Echolocation is a layered experiment exploring existence in the aftermath of change.

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Nadia Shihab
  • Premiere: East Coast

Illegal immigrant, Nkechi, lives happily in the shadows with her partner Martha, but when immigration officers turn up unexpectedly, they …

  • Runtime: 13 minutes
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Director: Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor
  • Premiere: East Coast
Experimental

Foreign in a Domestic Sense

A constellation of testimonies and imaginaries of Puerto Ricans who have migrated to Central Florida as a result of political …

  • Runtime: 32 minutes
  • Country: Puerto Rico, United States
  • Director: Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Natalia Lassalle Morillo
  • Premiere: World
Experimental

FORGOTTEN PARADISE: DREAM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER

Energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed. Director Charlotte Brathwaite in collaboration with Photographer Malick Welli imagine the …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: Senegal
  • Director: Charlotte Brathwaite
  • Premiere: United States

Princeville, NC is the first town incorporated by freed, enslaved Africans in America. This historical significance sits on a precipice: …

  • Runtime: 29 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Resita Cox
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Freshwater is a short film by dream hampton about her disappearing Black city, flooded basements, and the fluid nature of …

  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: dream hampton
Short Narrative

Glitter Ain’t Gold

A sixth grader takes a trip with his best friend to the flea market in order to buy his first …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Christian Nolan Jones
  • Premiere: East Coast
Experimental

Golden Jubilee

In Golden Jubilee, Sanzgiri reconsiders ideas of freedom, loss and recovery in the wake of colonial and neo-colonial theft. The …

  • Runtime: 16 minutes
  • Country: United States, India
  • Director: Suneil Sanzgiri
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

A young boy wrestles with his imagination as he learns about his estranged father through a visit to his stepbrother’s …

  • Runtime: 16 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Morgan Mathews
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Director Byron Hurt lifts the veil on a variety of underground hazing rituals that are abusive, and sometimes deadly.

  • Runtime: 104 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Byron Hurt
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Savannah Walker’s fear of speaking publicly in poetry class leads her to steal her mother’s magical golden hoops, believing that …

  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Kasey Elise Walker
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Feature Narrative

Jasmine Is A Star

Jasmine Is A Star follows the journey of a determined 16-year-old with albinism (lack of pigment in the hair, skin, …

  • Runtime: 58 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Jo Rochelle
  • Premiere: East Coast

Above Beirut flies an unexpected bearer of hope: the pigeon game “Kash Hamam”. During the recent dystopian political collapse, we …

  • Runtime: 90 minutes
  • Country: Germany, Lebanon, Qatar
  • Director: Lea Najjar
  • Premiere: North America
Feature Documentary

Let the Little Light Shine

When a thriving, top-ranked Chicago African American elementary school is threatened to be closed and replaced by a new high …

  • Runtime: 86 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Kevin Shaw
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Feature Narrative

Lingui, The Sacred Bonds

On the outskirts of the capital of Chad, determined single mother Amina works tirelessly to provide for herself and her …

  • Runtime: 87 minutes
  • Country: Chad, France, Germany, Belgium
  • Language: Arabic, French
  • Director: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
  • Cast: Achouackh Abakar Souleymane, Rihane Khalil Alio, Youssouf Djaoro
  • Cinematographer: Mathieu Giombini
  • Co Producer: Diana Elbaum, Florence Stern
  • Editor: Marie-Hélène Dozo
  • Producer: Melanie Andernach
  • Screenwriter: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
  • Sound Design: Corinna Fleig

A young woman struggling to acknowledge the first anniversary of her sister’s death is lost in her grief. Can her …

  • Runtime: 15 minutes
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Director: Juliana Kasumu
  • Premiere: United States
Feature Documentary

Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power

Told by those who were on the frontlines in 1960s Alabama, After Selma recounts the courageous campaign of citizens and …

  • Runtime: 90 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Geeta Gandbhir, Sam Pollard
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Many Lumens: Mira Nair and Maori Karmael Holmes

The Martins family are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the …

  • Runtime: 115 minutes
  • Language: Portuguese
  • Cast: Rejane Faria, Carlos Francisco, Camilla Damião
  • Cinematographer: Leonardo Feliciano
  • Director: Gabriel Martins
  • Editor: Gabriel Martins, Thiago Ricarte
  • Executive Producer: Thiago Macedo Correia
  • Production Design: Rimenna Procópio
  • Screenwriter: Gabriel Martins
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Inspired by a popular American TV Show about a female jailhouse, ayoung Haitian girl galvanizes her friends to help women …

  • Runtime: 15 minutes
  • Country: Haiti
  • Director: Wilson Edmond
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

My Parents’ Bazaar (El Bazar De Mis Padres)

According to the Indian family tradition, the eldest son is obliged to take care of the business and his parents …

  • Runtime: 28 minutes
  • Country: Spain
  • Director: Rakesh Narwani
  • Premiere: North America
Short Documentary

My Saints Recognize Your Saints (Meus Santos Saúdam Teus Santos)

After returning to the Marajó island, homeland of his grandparents, Rodrigo meets shaman Roxita and discovers that he inherited spiritual …

  • Year: 2021
  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: Brazil
  • Director: Rodrigo Antonio
  • Premiere: North America

The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken …

  • Runtime: 16 minutes
  • Country: Germany, Qatar, Palestine, Jordan
  • Director: Ahmad Saleh
  • Premiere: East Coast

A Deaf, female security guard on the night shift observes a man in a midst of a crisis: they find …

  • Runtime: 11 minutes
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Director: Bim Ajadi
  • Premiere: United States
Short Narrative

One Magenta Afternoon

The lesson is love: when Pop Pop and his grandson, Les, play jazz, they summon six queer spirits and tumble …

  • Runtime: 8 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Vernon Jordan, III
  • Premiere: East Coast
Feature Documentary

One Take Grace

Eclectic cinematic portrait of Mothiba Grace Bapela (58), South African mother, grandmother, film & television actor, and former domestic worker …

  • Runtime: 91 minutes
  • Country: South Africa
  • Director: Lindiwe Matshikiza
  • Premiere: North America

Ourika is reborn, out of the blob, and finally free.

  • Runtime: 25 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Xenia Matthews
  • Premiere: World
Experimental

OUT / SIDE OF TIME

OUT / SIDE OF TIME is a “Black imaginary repository,” a container space for our collective Black imaginaries that exist …

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 5 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Jenn Nkiru
Short Documentary

PATTY vs. PATTY

Patty vs. Patty tells the story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 “Patty Wars,” when Jamaican-Canadian bakers, facing hefty fines, went head-to-head with …

  • Runtime: 18 minutes
  • Country: Canada
  • Director: Chris Strikes
  • Premiere: United States
Short Narrative

PIIKSI/HUIA (Bird)

Huia dreams to be a principle ballerina for the country’s top academy. During her audition, an unexpected visitor shows up …

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: New Zealand
  • Director: Cian Elyse White, Joshua Manyheads
  • Premiere: East Coast
Short Documentary

Pili Ka Moʻo

The Fukumitsu ‘Ohana (family) of Hakipu’u are Native Hawaiian taro farmers and keepers of this generational practice. While much of …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Justyn Ah Chong
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

Quarantine Kids

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children has been devastating. Quarantine Kids tells the courageous story of nine year …

  • Runtime: 7 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Bilal Motley, Bria Motley
  • Premiere: World

The machine is on the move, holds the microphone without listening, marvels without seeing, makes as many stereotypes as images. …

  • Runtime: 65 minutes
  • Country: France / Germany
  • Director: Alain Gomis
  • Premiere: United States
Short Narrative

Selahy (My Weapon)

A young, deaf Arab girl, born in the ravages of a war zone, whose only weapons are her hearing aids …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: United States, Jordan
  • Director: Alaa Zabara
  • Premiere: East Coast
Experimental

Show Me Other Places

Navigating through a multitude of spaces from the natural world to man-made environments as well as virtual planes, traditional relationships …

  • Runtime: 11 minutes
  • Country: Sri Lanka & United States
  • Director: Rajee Samarasinghe
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Silent Beauty is a lyrical and sensitive autobiographical exploration of the filmmaker’s family history with child sexual abuse and a …

  • Runtime: 87 minutes
  • Country: United States, Mexico, Malta.
  • Director: Jasmín Mara López
  • Premiere: East Coast

A daughter asks her mother a question about her mother’s childhood. Her answer begs them to wade through its rippling …

  • Runtime: 12 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Aurora Brachman
  • Premiere: World
Feature Documentary

Storming Caesars Palace

This film uplifts the story of Las Vegas activist Ruby Duncan and a band of ordinary mothers who launched one …

  • Runtime: 86 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Hazel Gurland-Pooler
  • Premiere: World
Short Documentary

Strictly Two Wheel

An intimate portrait on a family owned mechanic shop in rural Jamaica and a father’s love for his family and …

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: Jamaica
  • Director: Ania Freer
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

Sub Eleven Seconds

A rumination on time, loss, and hope, and a poetic imagining of the quest of Sha’Carri Richardson, a young track …

  • Runtime: 24 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Bafic
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Narrative

Sunday Morning (Manhã de Domingo)

Gabriela is a young pianist who will perform at her first major recital. However, a dream about her dead mother …

  • Runtime: 25 minutes
  • Country: Brazil
  • Director: Bruno Ribeiro
  • Premiere: North America

After centuries of slumber, the ‘Teine Sā’ are evoked into the modern world by 5 women who call on these …

  • Runtime: 60 minutes
  • Country: New Zealand
  • Director: Matasila Freshwater, Mario Gaoa, Miki Magasiva, Anapela Polataivao, Mario Faumui
  • Premiere: North America
Feature Narrative

The African Desperate

THE AFRICAN DESPERATE follows Palace Bryant on one very long day in 2017 that starts with her MFA graduation in …

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 99 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Martine Syms
  • Premiere: World
Short Documentary

The Fire This Time

A kaleidoscopic trip through the intertwined histories of pandemics, riots, and colonial violence. An archive constantly haunted by its possible …

  • Runtime: 26 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Mariam Ghani
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Based on the ancient animistic beliefs and shamanic rituals in Mongolia and Siberia, an exploration of the indigenous worldview and …

  • Runtime: 7 minutes
  • Country: Canada
  • Director: Alisi Telengut
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

The Game God(S)

The Game God(S) shows 4 characters: Martina, Frank, Brianna and Craig. They share their experiences as the Goddess of the …

  • Runtime: 19 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Adrian L. Burrell
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Narrative

The Love Machine

After successfully building a time machine that uses love to help heal and replace harmful childhood memories, a teenage scientist/influencer …

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Jasmine Lynea
  • Premiere: World
Short Documentary

The Panola Project

Highlighting the heroic efforts of Dorothy Oliver to keep her small town of Panola, Alabama safe from COVID-19. A chronicle …

  • Runtime: 17 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Rachael DeCruz, Jeremy S. Levine
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Feature Narrative

The Passion of Remembrance

Co-directed by Blackwood and Julien, the first full-length feature film by Sankofa Film and Video offers a radical and necessary …

  • Runtime: 83 minutes
  • Language: English
  • Cast: Anni Domingo, Joseph Charles, Antonia Thomas
  • Cinematographer: Steven Bernstein, Nina Kellgren
  • Director: Isaac Julien, Maureen Blackwood
  • Screenwriter: Isaac Julien, Maureen Blackwood
Short Documentary

The Ritual to Beauty

Three generations of Dominican women explore their relationship to relaxing their hair. By conjuring the magic of water and power …

  • Runtime: 14 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Shenny De Los Angeles, Maria Marrone
Experimental

The Season of Burning Things

The film seeks to track + trace movement/ migration between countries. The narrative revolves around water and the recurring sonic …

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: United Kingdom, Ethiopia
  • Director: Gouled Ahmed, Asmaa Jama
  • Premiere: World
Short Narrative

The Spirit God Gave Us

“The Spirit God Gave Us” is a love story about the intersection of faith and queer love as we follow …

  • Runtime: 19 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Michael Donte
  • Premiere: East Coast
Short Narrative

The Syed Xmas Eve Game Night

All cards are on the table when a queer Pakistani Muslim woman brings her Puerto Rican partner home for the …

  • Runtime: 11 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Fawzia Mirza
  • Premiere: Philadelphia

Lesedi spends her days throwing stones at passing cars and hoping for something to happen. Unexpectedly, a car breaks down …

  • Runtime: 15 minutes
  • Country: Germany
  • Director: Lindiwe Makgalemele
  • Premiere: North America
Short Documentary

Tomorrow Is Another Day (Kesho Pia Ni Siku)

Njeri is a smooth-talking, hymn-singing, 67 year old grandmother who runs Kanyoko Boutique in Nairobi, Kenya — a business she …

  • Runtime: 9 minutes
  • Country: Kenya
  • Director: Ng'endo Mukii
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Narrative

Tonight, We Eat Flowers

Luis, a recent immigrant who sells “hold music” and Jamilah, a gourmet chef stuck working in a cubicle, fall in …

  • Runtime: 15 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Bettina Escauriza
  • Premiere: World
Feature Narrative

Tug Of War (Vuta N’Kuvute)

A coming-of-age political love story set in the final years of British colonial Zanzibar. Denge, a young freedom fighter meets …

  • Runtime: 90 minutes
  • Country: Tanzania, South Africa, Germany, Qatar
  • Director: Amil Shivji
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
  • Runtime: 16 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Rikkí Wright, Terence Nance
  • Premiere: World
Feature Documentary

We Still Here / Nos Tenemos

In response to the government’s disregard and poor relief management during Hurricane Maria, young residents from Comerio, Puerto Rico activate …

  • Runtime: 54 minutes
  • Country: Puerto Rico
  • Director: Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi

“Weidle’s” was a delicatessen in the artist’s hometown of Mansfield, Ohio that serviced the Northside community. In this 16mm silent …

  • Runtime: 3 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Kevin Jerome Everson
  • Premiere: World
Feature Documentary

WISDOM GONE WILD

An immersive meditation on elder consciousness and the act of caregiving a parent with dementia, filmmaker Rea Tajiri weaves her …

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 84 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Rea Tajiri
  • Premiere: World
Short Documentary

Woman of the Earth (Mujer De Tierra)

IN THE NAHUA COMMUNITY OF HUEYAPAN, PUEBLA, WE ENCOUNTER THE STORIES OF A GENERATION OF WOMEN THAT HAVE CHALLENGED SOCIETY. …

  • Runtime: 15 minutes
  • Country: Mexico
  • Director: Evelyn Mercedes Muñoz Marroquín
  • Premiere: United States
Short Narrative

You Can Always Come Home

As a young family and their friends prepare for a gathering, young children play throughout the home, revealing quotidian aspects …

  • Runtime: 6 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Juan Luis Matos
  • Premiere: Philadelphia
Short Documentary

ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught)

Filmed on the Qualla Boundary and Cherokee Nation, ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) explores expressions of reciprocity in the Cherokee …

  • Year: 2022
  • Runtime: 10 minutes
  • Country: United States
  • Director: Brit Hensel
  • Premiere: Philadelphia