34th Annual Black Film Festival

Annual Film Festival covering Black movie history and Black culture in film

Join us at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library for The 34th Annual Black Film Festival! We present a selection of great Black Films and short documentaries before each film, to celebrate and showcase Black art and life in America.

We will be screening films each Tuesday in February showcasing different aspects of the Black experience! Movies will be shown in the Auditorium. 

Documentaries will start @ 3:00pm 

Feature Films will start @ 5:00pm (Double Features will play back to back)

Tuesday, Feb. 7th- 

Emancipation & Documentary: James Baldwin: The Price of a Ticket

JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF A TICKET

@3:00pm

1h 27min 
JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF A TICKET captures on film the passionate intellect and courageous writing of a man who was born black, impoverished, gay and gifted.

Emancipation 

@5:00pm

2h 12m

Based on the true story of an enslaved man who risks his life for his family and freedom. Starring Will Smith.

Tuesday, Feb. 14th- 

The Woman King, Lemonade & Documentary: Strange Fruit

STRANGE FRUIT

@3:00pm

57m
Strange Fruit is the first documentary exploring the history and legacy of the Billie Holiday classic. The song's evolution tells a dramatic story of America's radical past using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter.

Lemonade

@5:00pm

1h 4m
 a concept album with a song cycle that relates Beyoncé's emotional journey after her husband's infidelity in a generational and racial context.
Lemonade' is a deeply personal testament describing Queen Bey's discovery that her husband – the rapper Jay-Z – had been unfaithful. During its twelve songs we accompany Beyoncé on her journey from denial and anger to emptiness and apathy, forgiveness and redemption. It's also a manifesto of personal creativity

Woman King 

PG 13 2h 14m  
A historical epic inspired by true events that took place in The Kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most powerful states of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1800s, a group of all-female warriors protects the African kingdom of Dahomey with skills and fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen. Faced with a new threat, Gen. Nanisca trains the next generation of recruits to fight against a foreign enemy that's determined to destroy their way of life.

Tuesday, Feb 21st- 

Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle: The First African American Trade Union, I am not Your Negro & 13th 

Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle: The First African American Trade Union

@3:00pm

59m
The story of the organizing of the first black trade union - The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters - provides an account of African American working life between the Civil War and World War II.

I am not Your Negro

@5:00pm

PG 13 1h 35m
Writer James Baldwin tells the story of race in modern America with his unfinished novel, Remember This House. Filmmaker Raoul Peck examines James Baldwin's unfinished book about the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

13th

1h 40m
 
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans.

Tuesday, Feb. 28th-

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever & documentary: Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property 

Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property 

@5:00pm

Nat Turner's slave rebellion is a watershed event in America's long and troubled history of slavery and racial conflict. NAT TURNER: A TROUBLESOME PROPERTY tells the story of that violent confrontation and of the ways that story has been continuously re-told during the years since 1831. It is a film about a critical moment in American history and of the multiple ways in which that moment has since been remembered.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Rated PG-13 2h 41m

The nation of Wakanda is pitted against intervening world powers as they mourn the loss of their King T'Challa.

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