Black Cinematic Brilliance is going fully online – for the first time. This summer, for the 17th edition of the Seattle Black Film Festival (formerly Langston Hughes African American Film Festival) you can tune in from your couch! July 10-12, 2020, join LANGSTON, the non-profit committed to Cultivating Black Brilliance, and Seattle-based online independent film screening and music platform Couch-a-thon, as they team up to bring a fully online 2020 festival experience.
The Seattle Black Film Festival (SBFF) kicks off on Friday, July 10th and runs through Sunday, July 12th. The three-day festival, shortened from the typical four days, will feature its signature program of film screenings, panel discussions with filmmakers and community members and workshops to get you thinking and living Black cinematic brilliance! The festival weekend of communion and networking traditionally animates the hallways of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute in Seattle’s Central District during the month of April, but the festival was pushed back to July and moved online as the impacts of COVID-19 took shape.
This year’s festival will feature over 30 official selection films from across the diaspora, including films from Nigeria, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. Plus a dose of youth cinematic brilliance through our partnership with Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and the CRASH kids workshops. We’ve got a woman-forward program this year, featuring a number of female film directors, community members and national names in film and television leading workshops and panel discussions. Together, we weave a weekend of inspiration, celebration and good humor.
Festival highlights include:
• The festival kicks off Friday, July 10th at 6:00 pm with a Director’s Lens Happy Hour with this year’s official selection directors joining us from across the country to present their Black and Brilliant shorts. Tune in to the stream to hear insights on this year’s films and what’s new in Black independent filmmaking from the source. Get answers to your questions then settle in for a curated evening of this year’s Black and brilliant shorts selection, including work from local filmmakers Nicole Pouchet (writer for Amazon Prime’s “Strowlers”), Jeremiah Williams, D.J. Walker, Nifemi Madarikan and Kamari Bright.
• The Storyteller’s Toolkit (Masterclass) Saturday, July 11th at 2:00 pm. SBFF’s Masterclass features host, Shannan E. Johnson, leading a discussion on culture, craft, and career strategies. For this exclusive live event, special guests, writer/director Patrik-Ian Polk (Being Mary Jane; Punks ) and Numa Perrier ( JEZEBEL [Writer/Director]; Queen Sugar [Director]; Black & Sexy TV [Creator]), will share a detailed yet easy-to-follow outline (“toolkit”) to serve as a tangible resource for artists creating content for the streaming, film, and broadcast worlds.
• Media literacy in the age of Black Lives Matter. SBFF curator, educator and librarian Zola Mumford will lead a session that blows open your perception of Blacks in the media, andgives you the tools to consume savvy.
• Explore the people and places of Seattle’s historically Black Central District through a series of youth “crash” films. For the third year, Seattle Black Film Festival has partnered with Seattle International Film Festivalto host a series of filmmaking workshops and camps. Highlights of these vibrantly creative works by youth aged 9-12 will be shown Saturday, July 11th at 4pm.
• London-based director Veronica McKenzie joins us to present her feature film Nine Nights. Winner of the 2019 Pan African Film Festival Narrative Feature Director Award, herwoman-centered narrative explores the intersection of youth, tradition and grief.
• This year, Blackpast.org, the website dedicated to providing a global audience with reliable and accurate information on the history of African American and of people of African ancestry around the world, has provided links back to their site; providing deeper information on the subjects addressed in some of our 2020 official selection films. Watch for links in the program listing on langstonseattle.org, or learn more below.
As always, the festival will host a number of presenting filmmakers in attendance to represent their work and engage in the community conversations at each screening via Zoom.
Tickets
No tickets are required to participate in all festival events, but donations to LANGSTON are warmly encouraged. Your support of LANGSTON ensures our mission to strengthen and advance community through Black arts and culture will endure and thrive. You are a part of that community, and you are appreciated! Donate: https://www.langstonseattle.org/donate/
How to watch
Films will be screened once, during their scheduled screening block and will not be available on demand. You can view all films here on Langston’s Couch-a-thon.
Seattle Black Film Festival has teamed up with Couch-a-thon, a livestream film and music events platform based in Seattle.
A complete schedule of events can be found on Langston’s website.
