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 preserve the soil and their story.

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.

BLACK AND BLUR

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Experimental cinema on the edge of Black possibility.

BLKNWS: TERMS & CONDITIONS—VISIONARY AWARD PRESENTATION

Feature Film | Kahlil Joseph’s long-anticipated feature expands his acclaimed BLKNWS project into a cinematic experience. Using archival fragments, music, and new media, the film reframes the news cycle through the lens of Black life, imagination, and possibility. Dialogue: followed by an onstage conversation with director Kahlil Joseph and the Visionary Award presentation.