BlackStar Film Festival
The BlackStar Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by BlackStar Projects. The festival focuses on films about and by Black, brown and indigenous people from around the world. It takes place each August in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It has been described as the Black Sundance.
The festival is named after Marcus Garvey's shipping line, the Black Star Line. It was founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes, with the first BlackStar Film Festival initially conceived as a one-day microfestival that, due to the large number of submissions, ultimately turned into a four-day international event. Backers of the festival include the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, HBO, CAA, Comcast, and Lionsgate.
The first festival included a master class and screening of part of Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay. Later festivals have included films by Gabourey Sidibe, Janine Sherman Barrois, Darius Clark Monroe, Nijla Baseema Mu’min, and Naima Ramos-Chapman. Panels have included Bradford Young, Rashid Shabazz, Spike Lee, and Tarana Burke.
Yaba Blay, Akiba Solomon, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter have all previously served on the advisory board of the festival.