Tiny, intimate splinter stories from major metropolises, set against their local cityscapes. A timeout from the buzz of the big cities to sit with their inhabitants. Content warning: Distressing scenes of pica (Ship of Fools) Accessibility: Closed captions available Thank you to our screening partner: <a href target="_blank">SIFTMedia215 Collective</a>

City of Dreamz follows four Black art students telling stories of community, divine intervention and the artistry that led them to this very moment . . . smoking weed in a cramped NYC apartment, trying not to get caught.

City of Dreamz

Depicting the last days of Detroit’s Chinatown, 16-mm outtakes reverberate across a history of forced displacement and violence present in the broader Chinatown project. Emerging from these outtakes is the unelaborated story of the filmmaker’s grandmother, a former Detroit Chinatown restaurant worker.

Forbidden City

The Whites of Our Eyes is a short documentary film that follows Dr. Yaba Blay as she returns to her familial homeland of Ghana to explore the relationships between beauty, bodies and b/Blackness. In addition to recreating the groundbreaking Clark Doll Test among schoolchildren, the film follows a young hustler as he prepares for his community’s annual harvest festival by bleaching his skin. Amid the ghosts of colonialism and the gods of whiteness, The Whites of Our Eyes questions ideas and ideals of beauty in contemporary Ghana.

The Whites of Our Eyes

This animated documentary stitches together colorful and ragged fragments of the personal life of Alia, a Lebanese woman. Growing up facing war and displacement, searching and not finding freedom, she forms a friendship with a would-be superhero on the shore of Beirut called Abu Samra. She trains with him, and their monsters meet. Together, Alia and Abu Samra survive by finding comfort in the insanity that the city has sown in them. When the Lebanese revolution starts on October 17, 2019, they realize they are not alone.

Ship of Fools

Spillikin (Shorts) 

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BlackStar Film Festival an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities globally. 

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