The BlackStar Film Festival Has a Mission, and Plenty of Ambition

The 13th edition of the BlackStar Film Festival was held August 14 in Philadelphia .

The festival's name is a Pan-African nod to the Black Star shipping line, founded by Marcus Garvey .

Through its 96 screened films, the festival works to promote a fiercely expansive crop of work produced by Black, brown, and Indigenous filmmakers.

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire is a film about an anti-colonial scholar and Surrealist scholar and writer.

Director Al'Ikens Plancher 's film is inspired by the 1991 mass exodus from Haiti following the military overthrow of the nation’s president.

The team noted an uptick in industry attendance compared to festivals in years past.

The film fits well into Hunt-Ehrlich’s fixed attention on the interior, intellectual lives of Black women.

She laments the choice Black filmmakers often come up against, being forced to pick between form and those that value Blackness .

“I believe one day we’ll look back, and BlackStar will really show a continuity of a whole lineage of filmmakers from the Haile Gerimas to the Jenn Nkirus and the Ja’Tovia Garys .”.