Obama Center Hosting Black Harvest Film Festival Shorts Tuesday

📺 Block Club Chicago 🕐 September 25, 2026 at 8:59 AM

🏷️ Topics: #Arts & Culture

WOODLAWN — At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the Elie Wiesel Auditorium at the Obama Presidential Center, 6001 S. Stony Island Avenue, will host a series of shorts from Black Chicago filmmakers.

“Shorts from the Block: Black Harvest’s Chicago Stories,” presented in conjunction with the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Chicago Public Library, is a special program of five Chicago-made short films curated from the Black Harvest Film Festival.

Registration is currently full for the free event, but potential attendees can show up in person Tuesday to join the waitlist.

The Black Harvest Film Festival, which has run since 1994, is “Chicago’s annual showcase for films that celebrate, explore, and share the Black, African American, and African Diaspora experience,” according to the Siskel Center website. It will run from Nov. 6-15 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Downtown.

Tuesday’s screening will be followed by a conversation between Black Harvest Film Festival curator jada-amina and journalist Sylvia Ewing, reflecting on the connections between Chicago and Black cinema.

For jada-amina, who has been a curator of Black Harvest since 2023, the opportunity to screen these shorts at the Obama Center felt like “divine intervention.”

“It truly is the cosmology of the Chicago cultural landscape,” jada-amina told Block Club.

The program comes as part of Chicago Public Library’s attempts to center and champion Chicago histories, specifically Black histories. Spanning nonfiction, narrative, documentary and more, these shorts touch on a variety of issues facing Black Chicagoans, from South Side-West Side divisions to portraits of Juneteenth celebrations and historic Black businesses, and snapshots of neighborhood cultural pride.

The five shorts in this program include:

“90 Days” (directed by Nathan Hale Williams): An award-winning short that continues to challenge HIV stigma through an intimate story of love, vulnerability and compassion.
“Take 290” (directed by Sandrel Nicole Young): A lyrical West Side–South Side love story exploring the relationship between art, place and community.
“Everything Is Everything” (directed by Kin Marie): A conversational documentary reflecting on Juneteenth commemorations across Chicago and the ways collective memory is carried forward through community celebration.
“From Scratch” (directed by Somer Van Benton and Kate Wunderlich): A portrait of Roseland’s Old Fashioned Donuts and the enduring legacy of neighborhood institutions built through care, labor and community.
“For the Crib” (directed by Lawrence Agyei): Following the South Shore Drill Team’s return to the Bud Billiken Parade, the film celebrates intergenerational leadership, neighborhood pride and one of Chicago’s most enduring cultural traditions.

A still from “From the Crib” by Lawrence Agyei, part of Shorts from the Block: Black Harvest’s Chicago Stories. Credit: Provided

Each of these shorts is an alum film that has appeared on previous Black Harvest lineups. Not only does this program allow the shorts to find a new audience beyond their festival run, but they also continue jada-amina’s mission to cultivate and develop Black cultural production in Chicago.

“I believe in transparent facilitation and not gatekeeping,” she stated. These reprises keep cultural conversations around Blackness in Chicago going beyond the festival.

Another advantage of screening at the Obama Center is giving these shorts a chance to be seen by people who, because of various socioeconomic barriers, may not make it to the Siskel Center for Black Harvest each year. “We realize everyone can’t get out to the Loop,” she added, “which is another reason we’re bringing these films to a neighborhood that has ties to Black folks.” While some audience members are flying in, according to jada-amina, she’s proud to say these shorts will play to a primarily Chicago audience.

“I ain’t never seen no one love Chicago like a Chicagoan,” she said. This is furthered by the fact that the program sold out in “no flex, like, a minute,” according to jada-amina. “It was almost kind of scary.”

Ultimately, this shorts block is, for jada-amina, a chance to ground Black Harvest in a tradition that exists outside the Siskel Center. “We’re here, and films like these celebrate the collective us across diaspora, across geography, and across generations.”

The same-day waitlist for the screening event will open at the Obama Presidential Center at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, 30 minutes before the program begins. Waitlist guests will be admitted beginning at 6:10 p.m., as space becomes available, in the order they arrived. Admission from the waitlist is not guaranteed, and no additional guests will be admitted after 6:20 p.m.

The 32nd edition of the Black Harvest Film Festival will run from Nov. 6-15 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. You can sign up for email alerts and learn more information here.

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Obama Center Hosting Black Harvest Film Festival Shorts Tuesday.

WOODLAWN — At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the Elie Wiesel Auditorium at the Obama Presidential Center, 6001 S. Stony Island Avenue, will host a series of shorts from Black Chicago filmmakers. “Shorts from the Block: Black Harvest’s Chicago Stories,” presented in conjunction with the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Chicago Public Library, is a special program of five Chicago-made short films curated from the Black Harvest Film Festival. Registration is currently full for the free event, but potential attendees can show up in person Tuesday to join the waitlist.  The Black Harvest Film Festival, which has run since 1994, is “Chicago’s annual showcase for films that celebrate, explore, and share the Black, African American, and African Diaspora experience,” according to the Siskel Center website. It will run from Nov. 6-15 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Downtown. Tuesday’s screening will be followed by a conversation between Black Harvest Film Festival curator jada-amina and journalist Sylvia Ewing, reflecting on the connections between Chicago and Black cinema.  For jada-amina, who has been a curator of Black Harvest since 2023, the opportunity to screen these shorts at the Obama Center felt like “divine intervention.”  “It truly is the cosmology of the Chicago cultural landscape,” jada-amina told Block Club.  The program comes as part of Chicago Public Library’s attempts to center and champion Chicago histories, specifically Black histories. Spanning nonfiction, narrative, documentary and more, these shorts touch on a variety of issues facing Black Chicagoans, from South Side-West Side divisions to portraits of Juneteenth celebrations and historic Black businesses, and snapshots of neighborhood cultural pride.  The five shorts in this program include: “90 Days” (directed by Nathan Hale Williams): An award-winning short that continues to challenge HIV stigma through an intimate story of love, vulnerability and compassion. “Take 290” (directed by Sandrel Nicole Young): A lyrical West Side–South Side love story exploring the relationship between art, place and community. “Everything Is Everything” (directed by Kin Marie): A conversational documentary reflecting on Juneteenth commemorations across Chicago and the ways collective memory is carried forward through community celebration. “From Scratch” (directed by Somer Van Benton and Kate Wunderlich): A portrait of Roseland’s Old Fashioned Donuts and the enduring legacy of neighborhood institutions built through care, labor and community. “For the Crib” (directed by Lawrence Agyei): Following the South Shore Drill Team’s return to the Bud Billiken Parade, the film celebrates intergenerational leadership, neighborhood pride and one of Chicago’s most enduring cultural traditions. A still from “From the Crib” by Lawrence Agyei, part of Shorts from the Block: Black Harvest’s Chicago Stories. Credit: Provided Each of these shorts is an alum film that has appeared on previous Black Harvest lineups. Not only does this program allow the shorts to find a new audience beyond their festival run, but they also continue jada-amina’s mission to cultivate and develop Black cultural production in Chicago.  “I believe in transparent facilitation and not gatekeeping,” she stated. These reprises keep cultural conversations around Blackness in Chicago going beyond the festival.  Another advantage of screening at the Obama Center is giving these shorts a chance to be seen by people who, because of various socioeconomic barriers, may not make it to the Siskel Center for Black Harvest each year. “We realize everyone can’t get out to the Loop,” she added, “which is another reason we’re bringing these films to a neighborhood that has ties to Black folks.” While some audience members are flying in, according to jada-amina, she’s proud to say these shorts will play to a primarily Chicago audience.  “I ain’t never seen no one love Chicago like a Chicagoan,” she said. This is furthered by the fact that the program sold out in “no flex, like, a minute,” according to jada-amina. “It was almost kind of scary.”  Ultimately, this shorts block is, for jada-amina, a chance to ground Black Harvest in a tradition that exists outside the Siskel Center. “We’re here, and films like these celebrate the collective us across diaspora, across geography, and across generations.”  The same-day waitlist for the screening event will open at the Obama Presidential Center at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, 30 minutes before the program begins. Waitlist guests will be admitted beginning at 6:10 p.m., as space becomes available, in the order they arrived. Admission from the waitlist is not guaranteed, and no additional guests will be admitted after 6:20 p.m. The 32nd edition of the Black Harvest Film Festival will run from Nov. 6-15 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. You can sign up for email alerts and learn more information here.  ______________________________________________________________________ Support Local News! Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click here to gift a subscription, or you can support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation. Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:

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