BlackStar x MOCA

BlackStar presents a special evening of short films, conversations, and music featuring LA-based filmmakers who are alumni of the annual festival. The BlackStar Film Festival was founded in Philadelphia in 2012 by curator and filmmaker Maori Karmael Holmes. It is an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the global majority, showcasing film and video by Black, Brown and Indigenous artists.

Schedule:
Film Program
Q&A with Filmmakers led by Maori Karmael Holmes
Panel, "Mothering and Laboring the Cinematic Revolution”
Reception and DJ set by Sonny James.

Panel:

In a nod to a Festival panel from 2020, we present “Mothering and Laboring the Cinematic Revolution” with filmmakers and mothers: Amatus Ali, Sonya Childress (moderator), Loren Hankin, Tchaiko Omawale, and Numa Perrier. Black motherhood is sacred. As working artists, Black mothers labor in ways that are both immediately life sustaining and visionary. By centering the particular concerns of radical, mothering filmmakers, this conversation explores how care work is intricately connected to cultural work and asks how we continue to claim art as revolutionary for and from the masses while addressing the material concerns and conditions of working-class people. The fight to raise free Black children is ever present. These panelists offer insights and dreams from their personal, political, and artistic experiences nurturing, protecting, and freeing their kin.

Film Program:

Afrikan Space Program Forever
Dir. Nesanet Abegaze, 2020, 6 min, Super 8mm Film
The Ras G music festival was held in Leimert Park on August 10, 2019, as a loving tribute to a community champion, musical genius, and visionary, Gregory Shorter - aka Ras G.

Friendzone LA
Dir. Angel Kristi Williams, 2021, 3 min, HD Video
Best friends explore a day in LA but he's quietly in love with her.

Noor & Layla
Dir. Fawzia Mirza, 2021, 13 min, HD Video
Noor and Layla are breaking up. Is it the end of the road for these two Muslim women, or is it just the beginning? A film about reclaiming ritual through queer, Muslim love told at five moments in their relationship marked by the Azaan (call to prayer).

Slow Pulse
Dir. Marshall Tyler, 2021, 12 min, HD Video
In this moving story of love and dedication, Bernard Brash heals and finds hope by learning how to dance.

A Song About Love
Dir. Rikkí Wright, 2019, 14 min, HD Video
A Song About Love' explores the complex relationship between sexuality and religion and my personal experience with finding myself withing that paradigm. Navigating redemptive love vs. real love.

About BlackStar:

BlackStar Projects creates the spaces and resources needed to uplift the work of artists of color working outside of the confines of genre. We do this by producing year-round programs including film screenings, exhibitions, an annual film festival, the William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar, a film production lab, and Seen, a journal of film and visual culture. BlackStar has organized screenings and events in partnership with Ambulante Documentary Film Festival, Barnes Museum, British Film Institute, Colgate University, ICA Philadelphia, Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, MOCA, Sundance Film Festival, and Swarthmore College, among others.