Black Harvest Film Festival Celebrates 32nd Year With Lineup ‘For Us, By Us’

CHICAGO — After three decades of showcasing films created by Black artists across the diaspora, the mission for this year’s Black Harvest Film Festival can be summed up in one word, according to curator jada-amina: “continuity.”

The Black Harvest Film Festival will return for its 32nd year Friday through Nov. 15 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Individual tickets and movie passes are available for purchase here. 

After 32 years in business, what’s made the festival special is that it requires films are “for us, by us,” jada-aminda said. Festivities this year will continue that tradition — spotlighting feature films, documentaries and shorts made globally by “Black people telling our stories,” she said. The festival will include 60 local premieres and filmmakers representing 18 countries.

Opening night of the festival will kick off with four standout short films and the presentation of  The Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Black Harvest Film Festival Prize. One short film will be awarded $2,500 and a feature film $5,000 — double last year’s prize.

A Champagne toast after the screening will “set the tone for a program that is rich in spirit,” jada-amina said. Tickets for opening night are available here. 

The Black Harvest Film Festival received over 600 submissions this year — the largest pool jada-amina has seen since joining as curator in 2022 and a jump compared to last year’s numbers, she said. Submissions ranged from feature-length films to shorts, which make up a bulk of this year’s lineup. 

To narrow down the selection, jada-amina had to watch each film as a “compassionate viewer,” meaning her heart and mind were in the mix, she said. She watched many of the films multiple times, she said. 

This year’s lineup includes an expansion of “experimental works,” jada-amina said. Those films, which “break form and bend genre,” follow the trend of other recent releases distributed by major studios like A24, jada-amina said.

“I think folks are getting comfortable with thinking differently on how a film gets made and how we tell our stories,” jada-amina said. 

Finding the connection between hundreds of submissions is the “divinity and magic of being a film programmer” and what ultimately tethers people to art, jada-amina said. 

This year’s festival includes 10 short film programs jada-amina organized by searching for the “thematic throughline that tethers each film,” she said.

“Where Do We Go From Here” features films where a character faces a crossroad of some kind, she said. 

This year’s submissions didn’t include many romantic films, but did center Black love through family, community and self-love, jada-amina said. “Try A Little Tenderness” includes eight short films that consider love beyond the concept of romance.

“To Know Her Is To Love Her” explores the “portraiting” of Black women and femmes through stories of motherhood, healing, identity, illness, memory, embodiment and self-definition.

Films featured in the program “Ancestral Futures” speak to spirituality, ancestral ideas and how “looking back is really looking forward,” jada-amina said. 

“It’s beautiful to be representing so many cultures, perspectives and Black experiences,” jada-amina said. “The process feels divine to me.”

The festival in its entirety is filled with can’t-miss hits, but there are several programs that attendees shouldn’t dare to miss, jada-amina said.  

Shatara Michelle Ford’s 2024 feature “Dreams in Nightmares” showcases the joys and lows of Black, queer, chosen family. 

“Black and Blur,” eponymous to Fred Moten’s 2017 book of essays, speaks to Black people living under fugitivity and further expands ideas explored by civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, jada-amina said. Many of the short films featured in the program are experimental.

Then there’s “Shorts From The Block,” a short film program celebrating Black Chicago that includes films spotlighting the importance of our blocks and neighborhoods, jada-amina said. 

To be a curator is to be a caretaker, jada-amina said. Guaranteeing that the festival feels warm, inviting and “a place to call our own” to the dozens of locals and people who travel across the world to attend the week-long event is critical to her stewardship, she said. 

jada-amina took the lead as the curator of the Black Harvest Film Festival after the passing of its co-founder Sergio Mims, a visionary film critic, programmer, journalist and historian. Within her role, she hopes to continue to uplift Mims and his mission to give Black creatives a space to make their voices heard and dreams realized, she said.

“I was bequeathed the legacy, and I’m really paying that forward with the help of Black artists,” jada-amina said. “We attempt to make a space for folks to circulate their work, be seen and move forward to grow and then come back.”

More information is available on the film festival website.

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