BlackStar Projects, the premier organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists celebrated its 13th annual film festival this past weekend and is proud to announce the jury and audience award winners.
The 2024 edition of the festival continued to push boundaries by spotlighting genre-defying films and hosting ground-breaking conversations with an expansive community of indie filmmakers, artists, panelists and festival goers, all of whom met the moment with enthusiasm as this year’s festival welcomed thousands of attendees and record-breaking sales, including a sold out opening night world premiere of Shatara Michelle Ford’s Dreams in Nightmares.
From the 96 films screened, juried awards were given to Songs from the Hole, directed by Contessa Gayles, for Best Feature Documentary, After the Long Rains, directed by Damien Hauser, for Best Feature Narrative, Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), directed by Suneil Sanzgiri, for Best Experimental, And Still, It Remains, directed by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah, for Best Short Documentary and Boat People, directed by Al’Ikens Plancher, for Best Short Narrative. The Philadelphia Filmmaker Award was given to Expanding Sanctuary, directed by Kristal Sotomayor and the second annual Center for Cultural Power’s Climate Change Award went to Bring Them Home, directed by Daniel Glick, Ivan MacDonald and Ivy MacDonald.
‘To be honored by BlackStar, [who] are really about honoring work that is pushing the genre…and decolonizing our storytelling practices, it means a lot,’ said director Contessa Gayles, in accepting her award for Best Feature Documentary.
In collaboration with Blackbird, BlackStar hosted the fourth annual BlackStar Pitch at the festival and announced the winner as Highways, a forthcoming project from filmmaker Zeshawn Ali. Nausheen Dadabhoy’s Halal Bodies was selected as the pitch runner-up. Ali’s team will receive $75,000, mentorship from Multitude Films and other benefits, while Dadabhoy’s production will receive $25,000.
Winners were announced at the annual Director’s Brunch and Awards Ceremony, a cornerstone moment co-presented by The Gotham Film & Media Institute, celebrating all of the festival’s directors. This year Telfar generously provided gifts and filmmakers enjoyed an exclusive coffee blend brewed in collaboration with Philadelphia roaster Win Win.
BlackStar also invited its audience to select awards in Favorite Feature Narrative (Inky Pinky Ponky – the Odd One Out), Favorite Feature Documentary (You Don’t Have to Go Home, But…), Favorite Short Narrative (Burnt Milk), Favorite Short Documentary (Planetwalker formerly known as A Symphony of Tiny Lights) and Favorite Experimental (Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?)) categories. More information on the award winning films from all categories is below.
The BlackStar panel series saw audiences overflow from The Daily Jawn Stage presented by NEON, with panelists and moderators engaging in lively conversation, inviting global perspectives and challenging dialogues on various topics, including Media-Making in The Time of Genocide, Duty of Care and Black on The Internet. Additional set decor for the stage was provided by Walter Pine Floral Studio.
BlackStar also unveiled the next cover of Seen, its bi-annual journal of film and visual culture and announced filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and BlackStar film festival alumni, Ja’Tovia Gary as the guest editor of the journal’s 7th edition. The issue will be released in October and is now available for pre-order here.
Additionally, in partnership with Points North Institute, BlackStar announced the 2024 North Star Fellows: Lokotah Sanborn, Imani Dennison, Zac Manuel and Rea Tajiri and with lead sponsor Black Experience on Xfinity, named Andrew Bilindabagabo, Kristal Sotomayor, Chisom Chieke, Walé Oyéjidé as the 2025 Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab Fellows. These fellowships and the Pitch competition demonstrate BlackStar’s ongoing commitment to providing artists of color opportunities to create genre defying work.
Beyond film, the festival’s activation of the city provided wonderful opportunities for artists, filmmakers and film enthusiasts to engage at sold out parties and events throughout the weekend.
Notable festival guests included Denée Benton, Shatara Michelle Ford, Zeba Blay, dream hampton, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Tayarisha Poe, Staceyann Chin, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Bashir Salahuddin, among others. BlackStar thanks its major supporters Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity.
Jury Awards
Best Feature Documentary
Songs From the Hole directed by Contessa Gayles
Songs From the Hole had the entire feature documentary jury in tears, selected for its layered approach to interrogating harm while skillfully centering participant collaboration and emotional justice. It’s a film that creatively inspired the filmmakers on this jury with its quiet beauty, artistry and redemptive arc; It’s a film that took strength and harbored wisdom, while managing to play with form and function.
Short Narrative
Boat People directed by Al’Ikens Plancher
Boat People is a short and strikingly minimalist film that covers historical ground and probes imagination in a swift, but unrushed matter of minutes. From the acting and cinematography to the design and lighting, it shifts the expected cinematic gaze. With little dialogue and much suggestion, the film takes us on a journey with a lead character who embodies resistance through silent yet potent gestures of refusal.
Experimental Film
Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) directed by Suneil Sanzgiri
Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) mixes different film strategies to tell an impeccably well-researched story. It’s thoughtful and potent, managing to deal cohesively with blurred temporalities and mixed geographies while maintaining the clarity of the director’s voice. This film is an embodied work that is sensorial and textured.
Feature Narrative
After the Long Rains directed by Damien Hauser
After the Long Rains was described by the jury as ‘sumptuous’ and ‘delicious.’ With divine cinematography and brilliant editing, this warm and textured film captures the intricacies of this African family’s life while being everybody’s story and honors the specifics of a child’s perspective through beautiful storytelling.
Short Documentary
And Still, It Remains directed by Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah
Through durational and carefully-constructed cinematography, And Still, It Remains highlights the contrast between a land and the people living on it. The filmmakers reimpose a narrative of abundance and theft on this landscape and offer a dialogue between what we see and what we hear. Even the captions enhance the story as this film is a testament to making film more universally accessible.
Philadelphia Filmmaker Award
Expanding Sanctuary directed by Kristal Sotomayor
Expanding Sanctuary is an intimate and endearing film that beautifully portrays the power of immigrant communities and how organizing together can create a sense of belonging and real wins toward social change.
Center for Cultural Power’s Climate Change Award
Bring Them Home directed by Ivan MacDonald, Ivy MacDonald and Daniel Glick
Bring The Home cements Indigenous storytelling as a climate solution. At a time when our planet is on fire, it’s critical that we recognize that the climate crisis started with colonialism and that Indigenous storytellers help us confront, acknowledge and mourn what was lost, as well as to decolonize our imagination around climate solutions.
Audience Awards
Favorite Feature Narrative
Inky Pinky Ponky – the Odd One Out directed by Damon Fepule’ai & Ramon Te Wake
Favorite Feature Documentary
You Don’t Have to Go Home, But… directed by Aidan Un
Favorite Short Narrative
Burnt Milk directed by Joseph Douglas Elmhirst
Favorite Short Documentary
Planetwalker (A Symphony of Tiny Lights) directed by Dominic Gill and Nadia Gill
Favorite Experimental
Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?) directed by Suneil Sanzgiri
Shine Award
The Whites of Our Eyes directed by Maame Adjei and Yaba Blay
BlackStar Pitch
Winner — Highways directed by Zeshawn Ali, produced by Aman Ali.
Highways tells the story of a truck stop in the midwest which has become a hub for immigrant cross- country truck drivers. Through an observational lens, this film follows these men as they build lives in this new country and try to find home on the open roads.
Runner-up — Halal Bodies directed by Nausheen Dadabhoy, produced by Heba Elorbany.
Do Muslim American parents have a sex talk with their kids? And if they don’t, how do young Muslims learn about sex, relationships, intimacy and their own sexual identities?
Major support for the festival was provided by the Open Society Foundations and Black Experience on Xfinity.
Additional support for the festival provided by: AmericanDocumentary/POV, American Friends Service Committee, Andscape, Annenberg School for Communication at University of Pennsylvania, Black Public Media, The Center for Cultural Power, Color Congress, Creative Artists Agency, Critical Minded, Documentary.org, Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Eventive, Firelight Media, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, International Documentary Association, Impact Partners, Indego, ITVS, Kashif, NEON, NeueHouse, Peace Is Loud, PECO, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, Philadelphia Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Points North Institute, PNC Arts Alive, Runway, Soho House, StoryCorps, Temple University School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, University of Pennsylvania Department of Cinema & Media Studies, Visit Philadelphia, Walter Pine Floral Studio, Win Win Coffee, WORLD, WHYY and WURD.