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By Indie Means Necessary

The BlackStar Film Festival is an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and of global communities of color, showcasing films by black, brown and indigenous people from around the world.

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  • Academy Award–winning actress #LupitaNyongo has written a powerful, moving picture book about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within. The book is illustrated by BlackStar alumna @vashtiharrison!⠀ ⠀ About the book: ⠀ #Sulwe has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.
  • Part of the exhibition Assemblage, in the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery @lpgallery curated by @maorikarmael, artist #MarieAlarcón will be showing her film with collective BARETEETH and Ash Richards titled "Witness" in the URBN Annex Screening Room followed by a discussion. ⠀ ⠀ The film was created as a multidisciplinary project from the Southwest Roots Residency at Bartram's Gardens in Philadelphia. It is a contemplative collage of audio interviews and daylight activities that explore relationships between place and self. ⠀ ⠀ 📅 Sunday, April 28. 3-4:30pm⠀ 📍 @lpgallery ⠀ ⠀ •⠀ •⠀ •⠀ #contemporaryart #projection #blackstarfilmfestival #lpgallery #phillyart
  • #GuavaIsland executive producer and #DonaldGlover’s frequent collaborator Ibra Ake explains, the wardrobe and costuming pulls from the African diaspora to create a totally new world. “The clothing was a huge palette for us to express ourselves and tell stories”. GQ Fashion Director Mobolaji Dawodu, who styled the film and worked with costume designers Edwin Mohney and Kate Tabor to create the entire cast’s wardrobe, similarly spoke of a wide swath of influences. “The main thing is that it was an all-black world. You can pick up references to a lot of things, but it didn’t have to be specific to a country or a region,” said Dawodu said of the fashion on film. “Obviously Africa was an anchor, but we took a lot of elements of black style from different places and put it together.” There was one location-specific piece, though, that Dawodu was most excited about. In the final scene, Rihanna tops off her stunning deep blue gown with a head tie inspired by Dawodu’s Nigerian aunts. “It’s a specific style of Nigerian gele,” he said. Dawodu commissioned a local artisan who he found selling masks on the street in Havana to make hundreds of similar ones for the production. The striped dress that #Rihanna wears in the bootleg trailer is a design from a Cuban woman as well. “The costume designers were instructed to use found objects,” said Ake, as resources were scarce. “One costume was made from condoms. There had to be a dollar limit on each because we wanted it not to be about the fanciest and most intricate costume, like most movies would. It was more about how you can make do with what’s in your home if you had to leave your house and celebrate,” said Ake. “It was about being creative with what you had.” . . . Source: @vogue 📷: Ibra Ake
  • @Wanuri Kahiu’s film ‘Rafiki’ will have its first U.S. theatrical run at @BAM_Brooklyn from Friday, April 19 through Thursday, April 25. Kahiu is due to make an appearance during the week-long run.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Her next project will be co-writing and directing the tv series adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Wild Seed’ for Amazon Prime Video. The book tells the love (and hate) story of two African immortals who travel the ages from pre-Colonial West Africa to the far, far future. Doro, a killer who uses his power to breed people like livestock, encounters Anyanwu, a healer who forces him to reassess his millennia of cruel behavior: for centuries, their personal battles change the course of our world as they struggle against the backdrop of time — master vs slave, man vs woman, killer vs healer.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Kahiu and co-writer Nnedi Okorafor were tapped to work on the adaption by @violadavis’ JuVee Productions. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Source: @deadline @okayafrica
  • “This idea of expectation is so deeply complicated because I think in some respects, black artists are held responsible for how we represent black authenticity, which can sometimes keep us from exploring our complexity. We need to be telling stories that explore the black psychology and black existentialism because that is part of our experience as well. Our experience is not exclusively in response to whiteness. We have a responsibility to each other to be aware of how our actions and behavior reflect on those around us. So, it’s a really complicated and difficult negotiation. But we need to be telling complicated and difficult stories about ourselves.” — @rashidjohnson, director of HBO’s adaptation of ‘Native Son.’⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ 📷: William Ukoh for @gq
  • Opening today @lpgallery: ‘Assemblage: An Exhibition on Collective Creativity’, curated by @maorikarmael. Participating collectives include: BARETEETH with Marie Alarcón and Ash Richards, Complex Movements, Shasta Geaux Pop!, MVMT, TNEG and SiriusShapeShifters.⠀ ⠀ All of the artists featured in the show move in and out of disciplines, cities and venues—defying categorization or genre, much like the show’s curator. There is an interest in de-colonizing authorship but also genre and discipline and the focus on outmoded— or at least contested — field structures including mentorship, mastery and genius.⠀ ________________________________________________⠀ ⠀ On view: Wednesday, April 10 through Friday, May 24, Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. ⠀ ⠀ Closing party: Friday, May 24 from 6-8 p.m. which will feature a performance by Shasta Geaux Pop!. ⠀ ⠀ Screening of Marie Alarcón’s ‘Witness’: Sunday, April 28 from 3-4:30 p.m. in the URBN Annex Screening Room.
  • Join us for the Philadelphia premiere of ‘Ambulance,’ a raw, first-person account of the last war in Gaza in the summer of 2014. Mohamed Jabaly, a young man from Gaza City, joins an ambulance crew as war approaches, looking for his place in a country under siege, where at times there seems to be no foreseeable future. While thousands of things are published on the recurring violence in Gaza, the stories behind them remain hidden. Not this one.⠀ ⠀ *Film features graphic images and scenes.⠀ ⠀ 📅 April 15, 7pm⠀ 📍 @slought_org - 4017 Walnut St, Philadelphia ⠀ ⠀ After the screening there will be a conversation between director @jabalymohamed and BlackStar’s Program Director Nehad Khader @phillynee.
  • We’re excited to be screening select films from last year’s festival at @moca Los Angeles from April 11 - July 4! This Thursday April 11 at 7pm, @maorikarmael will be in conversation with @NaimaRamChap and @yameansupreme at MOCA.‬⠀ ————————————————————————⠀ Screening: AdiSea DAWNing, directed by d. Sabela Grimes and Meena Murugesan⠀ ⠀ When the Lionfish Came, directed by Tamika Galanis⠀ ⠀ Fucked Like A Star, directed by Stefani Saintonge⠀ ⠀ Drop of Sun Under the Earth, directed by Shikeith Cathey⠀ ⠀ The Violence of a Civilization without Secrets, directed by Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil and Jackson Polys⠀ ⠀ Piu Piu, directed by Naima Ramos-Chapman