OPENING NIGHT

Special Event | Welcome to the 31st Black Harvest Film Festival! Join us for this presentation of select Black Harvest Film Festival short films and the announcement of the winners

EVERY SEED IS A STAR

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | From blood to chosen, this collection of shorts honors tenderness and ties across generations and geographies. 

SEEDS

Feature Film | A lyrical portrait of Black farmers in the American South, tracing land, lineage, and loss. Shyne captures quiet acts of care and resistance as families fight to

PAW PAW & DAYJA

Feature Film | A family comedy where a Bigfoot-obsessed 10-year-old and her grandfather rediscover wonder through loss and laughter.

PROMISED LANDS

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Stories on migration, belonging, and the places we call home.

WILL

Feature Film | The first feature directed by a Black woman, Jessie Maple’s 1981 WILL tells a Harlem story of redemption, marking Loretta Devine’s unforgettable screen debut.

BROTHER TO BROTHER

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Ten portraits of Black men and boys tracing the art of becoming across generations and geographies.

NIGHT SHIFT

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | An eclectic late-night ride for the nocturnal.

THE RESTORE FELLOWSHIP DOCUMENTARY

Feature Film | Five Black Chicagoans, each carrying the impact of incarceration, journey to Benin through the Restore Fellowship to reclaim history and reimagine repair and liberation at the source.

HAUNTOLOGIES

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | In this shorts program, horror and speculative cinema become portals where the future is here, and the past walks beside us.

MOVE YA BODY: THE BIRTH OF HOUSE

Feature Film | A soulful chronicle of Chicago’s house music—its powerful roots and its echoes, and its power to move the world through rhythm, memory, and joy.