Special Event | Welcome to the 30th Black Harvest Film Festival!

Special Event | For over five decades, the Community Film Workshop of Chicago (CFWC) has supported African Americans and people of color in the film industry.

Feature Film | In the wake of South African apartheid, Ernest Cole’s lens exposed the stark realities of colonial oppression.

Feature Film | An intergenerational group of Black women and girls take the debutante ball off the mantle of memory, bringing this long-lost tradition back to life in Canton, Ohio.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Black love strikes a chord in this symphony of shorts.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | From cradle to cane, join us for short films for the fam.

Feature Film | Khalid, a Black man from New York, finds himself stranded in a small Bulgarian coastal town—bankrupt on bailouts, broken, and bereft of loved ones.

Special Event | Join Terence Nance for an intimate evening showcasing episodes four and five from season two of the acclaimed HBO series Random Acts of Flyness.

Feature Film | In search of family, orphaned Nikiya plunges into the shadows of her fiancé’s estranged kin.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | This ain’t no rom-com; it’s complicated: 30, flirty, and navigating life one laugh (or cry) at a time.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | In a world where Black girls are enough, these shorts reflect the powerful bond between sisters.

Feature Film | Dan Freeman, the CIA’s first “diversity hire,” becomes disillusioned with the agency and returns to a post-1968 Chicago, a city still mourning its beloved revolutionaries. In this charged environment, he trains young Black men in guerrilla tactics, transforming them into empowered freedom fighters.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | The legacy of Black masculinity unfolds in this collection of portraits, celebrating beauty, struggle, and resilience.

Feature Film | Following his wife’s passing, single father Lucky embarks on a journey with his son Mason, who has Down syndrome.

Feature Film | In the wake of a tumultuous election, Democratic Republic of the Congo reignited its ambition to construct Africa’s largest power plant.

Feature Film | AMAKKI, meaning “your mother,” is an intimate journey through Sidama’s coffee-growing hills.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | The Windy City raised us, but the world is our oyster. Celebrate stories by local filmmakers with this dynamic slate of shorts.

Special Event | Psst! Peer into the unknown, embrace the ambiguity, and show up to the Film Center for a screening that is entirely, absolutely, and ultimately “to be announced”—quite literally the moment the lights go down.

Feature Film | A corporate executive finds herself sharing a rental car with her ex-fiancé’s mother amidst a fierce storm.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Tender, tumultuous, transformative—it’s not water, it’s thicker than that.

Feature Film | At a dining hall table at Yale in the 1990s, a group of Black students sought sanctuary within the ivory tower, echoing the legacy of solidarity forged during civil rights protests at lunch counters decades earlier.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | What’s done in the dark comes to the light on the big screen with these short stories of Black horror and haunting.

Feature Film | Leaving the oppressive backdrop of the 1940s United States, James Baldwin departs New York for Paris, joining fellow Black expats searching for liberation.

Feature Film | Mack, Tracy, Amari, and Stephanie, high school teammates, find themselves abandoned at the beach on their way to a basketball tournament.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | A showcase of Black filmmakers who break form and give cinema new meaning.

Feature Film | Kwame, a young man struggling in clandestine sapphire mines, returns home and confronts the rampant corruption in Madagascar.

Feature Film | An intergenerational group of Black women and girls take the debutante ball off the mantle of memory, bringing this long-lost tradition back to life in Canton, Ohio.

Feature Film | In 1993, as hip-hop emerged as a radical voice against a backdrop of systemic racism and mass incarceration, IT WAS ALL A DREAM serves as a visual memoir that immerses viewers in the genre’s golden era, teetering on the edge of global domination.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | What is passed down cannot be forgotten.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | What’s done in the dark comes to the light on the big screen with these short stories of Black horror and haunting.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | This ain’t no rom-com; it’s complicated: 30, flirty, and navigating life one laugh (or cry) at a time.

Feature Film | In search of family, orphaned Nikiya plunges into the shadows of her fiancé’s estranged kin.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | The Windy City raised us, but the world is our oyster. Celebrate stories by local filmmakers with this dynamic slate of shorts.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | The legacy of Black masculinity unfolds in this collection of portraits, celebrating beauty, struggle, and resilience.

Feature Film | AMAKKI, meaning “your mother,” is an intimate journey through Sidama’s coffee-growing hills.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | In a world where Black girls are enough, these shorts reflect the powerful bond between sisters.

Feature Film | Leaving the oppressive backdrop of the 1940s United States, James Baldwin departs New York for Paris, joining fellow Black expats searching for liberation.

Feature Film | Following his wife’s passing, single father Lucky embarks on a journey with his son Mason, who has Down syndrome.

Special Event | Visual maker, creative researcher, sound designer, and director Osadolor Osawemwenze presents their thesis on Blackqueer creatives using lo-fi and DIY audiovisual aesthetics within the Black diaspora.

Special Event | How do we honor the past while forging new paths? In this dynamic double feature, we explore the intricate interplay of memory and identity.

Feature Film | In the wake of a tumultuous election, Democratic Republic of the Congo reignited its ambition to construct Africa’s largest power plant.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Tender, tumultuous, transformative—it’s not water, it’s thicker than that.

Feature Film | At a dining hall table at Yale in the 1990s, a group of Black students sought sanctuary within the ivory tower, echoing the legacy of solidarity forged during civil rights protests at lunch counters decades earlier.

Feature Film | Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Colson Whitehead, NICKEL BOYS chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida. (MGM)

Feature Film |  In the wake of South African apartheid, Ernest Cole’s lens exposed the stark realities of colonial oppression.

Feature Film | In 1993, as hip-hop emerged as a radical voice against a backdrop of systemic racism and mass incarceration, IT WAS ALL A DREAM serves as a visual memoir that immerses viewers in the genre’s golden era, teetering on the edge of global domination.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | Black love strikes a chord in this symphony of shorts.

Feature Film | Khalid, a Black man from New York, finds himself stranded in a small Bulgarian coastal town—bankrupt on bailouts, broken, and bereft of loved ones.

Special Event | With Sonic Constellations, Chicago-based scholar and curator chris d. reeder, alongside artist and theorist Nina Garibaldi, explores the essential role of sound in cinema, revealing how scores shape narratives and emotional experiences.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | A showcase of Black filmmakers who break form and give cinema new meaning.

Feature Film | Kwame, a young man struggling in clandestine sapphire mines, returns home and confronts the rampant corruption in Madagascar.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | From cradle to cane, join us for short films for the fam.

Shorts Program | Select filmmakers scheduled to attend. | What is passed down cannot be forgotten.

Special Event | We’re honored to conclude the 30th Black Harvest Film Festival with the Chicago premiere of the 4K digital restoration of Charles Burnett’s (KILLER OF SHEEP, TO SLEEP WITH ANGER) long-lost feature, THE ANNIHILATION OF FISH (1999, USA, 108 min. In English), starring James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, and Margot Kidder.