The BlackStar Film Festival has revealed its much-anticipated 11th edition lineup, boasting a variety of titles from Latin American and the Latinx diaspora. This year’s BlackStar Film Festival will run from August 2 - 6 in Philadelphia, featuring films made by directors from Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and the U.S.
The titles will screen in five competition sections – Best Experimental Film, Best Feature Narrative, Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Narrative Film, and Best Short Documentary Film. Additionally, a number of panels, workshops, yoga classes, and mixers will take place over the course of the four days of the festival.
One Latinx film and one Latin American film will be screening in the Best Documentary competition section of the festival: The Fight / La lucha and Fire Through Dry Grass. Directed by Bolivian-Australian filmmaker Violeta Ayala, The Fight tells the story of a group of people with disabilities in Bolivia who unite in protest for a pension. Trekking the Andes in their wheelchairs, they’re forced to confront a government that tries to silence them and a society indifferent to their struggle.
In Fire Through Dry Grass, directed by disabled Dominican Republic filmmaker Andrés “Jay” Molina, young, Black and brown disabled hip-hop artists document their pandemic experiences, their rhymes underscoring the danger they feel in the face of institutional neglect. Wearing snapback caps and Air Jordans, the Reality Poets aren’t typical nursing home residents.
One U.S. Latinx and one Latin American film will screen in the Narrative Feature section of the festival, although neither of them are in competition for Best Narrative Feature. The Brazilian film Between the Colony and the Stars / Entre a Colônia e as Estrelas, tells the story of Estelar, who works in a psychiatric hospital and has visions of the past. During a water crisis in the state, she welcomes Kalil, her younger brother, to live in her house.
Mountains, directed by Haitian-American filmmaker Monica Sorelle, deals with issues of immigration and gentrification. While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood.
Other Latinx films screening in the Documentary Feature section of the festival are The Space Race, Conversations with Ruth de Souza / Diálogos com Ruth de Souza, Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, Mafifa, and unseen.
The Space Race, directed by Latinx filmmakers Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, uncovers the little-known stories of the first black pilots, engineers and scientists to become astronauts. Simultaneously championed and exploited as political pawns, some made it to space, while others were erased from history.
In the Brazilian film Conversations with Ruth de Souza, Ruth de Souza pioneers the presence of Black actresses on stages, television, and cinema in Brazil. Through conversations and archival materials, the film portrays her trajectory spanning almost a century of life.
Through intimate vérité, archival footage and visually innovative treatments of her poetry, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project by Afro-Latina director Michèle Stephenson and her partner Joe Brewster, pushes the boundaries of biographical documentaries by traveling through time and space to reveal the enduring influence of one of America’s greatest living artists and social commentators.
In Mafifa, Cuban filmmaker Daniela Muñoz Barroso, who is almost completely deaf, wants to discover the identity of the remarkable musician Mafifa. Her quest leads her on the trail of an enigmatic woman, and also makes her question her own head and heart.
Finally, unseen, directed by Set Hernandez, tells the story of Pedro. As a blind, undocumented immigrant, Pedro faces political restrictions to obtain his college degree, secure a job as a health care provider, and support his family. As he finally graduates, uncertainty looms over Pedro. What starts as a journey to provide mental health for his community ultimately transforms into Pedro’s path towards his own healing.
Additionally, a number of Latin American and Latinx short films (narrative, documentary, and experimental) will premiere at the festival: Negra, Soy Bella, directed by Vashni Korin; Sol in the Garden directed by Emily Cohen Ibañez and Débora Souza Silva; How to Breathe Out of Water, directed by Victoria Negreiros and Júlia Fávero; What the Soil Remembers, directed by José Cardoso; and Tierra en trance, directed by the Mexican film collective Los Ingrávidos.
