InterGeneration

Directed by Carolyn Shadid Lewis (USA, 2021, 50 min.)

At the start of the 2020 pandemic, a Boston filmmaker works with eight inner-city teens to animate the memories of seven Boston elders. Their cross-generational creation becomes a playful and imaginative journey through the city’s past and present. A glimpse into an educational process, InterGeneration celebrates the beauty and strength of Boston’s neighborhoods of color and the multicultural fabric that can hold community together.

More Than Mas’ 

Directed by Rosalyn Negrón, Monica Cohen (USA, 2021, 32 min.)

Every summer, millions of Caribbean people in North America get together in huge carnival celebrations marking freedom, creative expression, and tradition. Festively-costumed dancers move and jump to the percussive sounds of soca on carnival day. But it's groups of visionaries, organizers, craftspeople, and DJs - working for months in their mas' camps - who make the carnival displays happen. More Than Mas' takes you back to the weeks before Boston's Caribbean Carnival. This is when costume designer Rudy and his group prepare for the King & Queen showcase, one of the events leading up to carnival day. Sequined mannequins and fantastical shapes stand in the backdrop of Rudy's makeshift workshop. In contrast to the spirited jubilation of carnival, mas' camp work is sometimes weary and often repetitive. The documentary moves through the different parts of costume-making, introducing characters in Rudy's band who play vital roles in the whole process of "making mas'." Band members Rudy, Iona, Junior, and Shawn explain what motivates them to do this work year after year. We come to understand that it's about more than carnival, more than mas'. Fusing creativity, pleasure, and craftsmanship, along with arduous and tedious work, Rudy and members of his band labor to build community, maintain traditions, and garner respect.

Chante Manman Mwen (My Mother’s Song)

Directed by Fedna Jacquet (USA, 2022, 15 min.)

How can we combat the negative stigma surrounding Haitian Americans? Let's focus on one woman's story. Haitian American supermom, Raymonde Jacquet, only has one regret. At 70 years old she fulfills her childhood dream with help from her daughter.

Quilt of Greatness

Directed by Denise A. Washington, Akili Jamal Haynes (USA, 2021, 5 min.)

My poem, “ A Quilt of Greatness” is dedicated to Harriet Powers, the mother of African-American story quilt traditions and is in memory of Honorable Chuck Turner, Former District 7 City Councilor; may he continue to organize from above. A Quilt of Greatness”, celebrates the newly renaming of the square from Dudley to Nubian and reminds the community that we are an Afrocentric Design and the Fabric of Roxbury in Nubian Square! This poem also highlights artists, business owner, clergy and activist: Hakim Raquib, Akili Jamal Haynes, Yvonne Abdal, Akunna Hussein Eneh, and Brandon Thomas Crowley, PhD! Together we are a pretty positive Patchwork Community!

The Slave Narrative of Willie May

Directed by Ifé Joan Franklin (USA, 2021, 23 min.)

The Slave Narrative of Willie Mae (TSNWM) is a work of historical fiction by multidisciplinary artist Ifé Franklin which tells the story of Willie Mae Lenox, a 20-year old Black woman enslaved in Virginia in the mid 1800s, who sets upon her journey to freedom. TSNWM began as a series of blog posts and live readings and was published in book form in 2018, edited by Letta Neely, published by Wild Heart Press, and printed by Red Sun Press (ISBN 0966309715, 9780966309713). TSNWM is now taking the form of a performance piece which invites the audience into Willie Mae’s environment, creating a sense of connection and immediacy between today’s community members and those who lived their lives in American chattel slavery. This project is not merely an artistic enterprise, it is a metaphysical one – it represents the transformation of the book into a living embodiment of the enslaved ancestors and co-creating with the audience a shared future of freedom and liberation.

Call it Even

Directed by Diego Smart Asap (USA, 2022, 19 min.)

The plot takes off when the United States government passes a Reparations Bill which puts aside 41 billion dollars to compensate African Americans for the genocide of the Atlantic Slave Trade. As a result, every American of African descent born before January 2013 is paid an amount of $100,000 dollars. From grandmother to newborn, 41 million African Americans receive a check in the mail for $100,000...and all hell breaks loose.

Under the Sun After the Wind

Directed by Patrice Bowman (USA, 2022, 5 min.)

An isolated Black woman struggles with the chaos she sees online. An adaptation of the Book of Ecclesiastes.

With a live Q&A.