By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
The 21st Annual Seattle Black Film Festival (SBFF), the longest and largest Black film festival in the Pacific Northwest, will take place from April 24 – 28 at the Langston Hughes Performing Art Institute, 104 17th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144.
The Black Film Festival has been running in the Central District for many years, bringing the best of the best and brightest of Black cinema to Seattle. The festival allows filmmakers in the area the opportunity to share their work with an audience that can view it from multiple different perspectives. This year’s festival will feature over 60 films at two in-person locations and virtually online.
“We have kind of always sought out the new voices of Black cinema because it is important for the Black voices of Seattle filmmaking to not be forgotten, but instead to be praised and acknowledged,” says Isabella Price, Manager of Film Programs at The Langston Hughes Performing Art Institute. “Our whole mission is to celebrate local and international Black Filmmakers of the African diaspora to tell the stories of Black people from all over the globe, in every kind of genre, movies, short films, and experimental animation to bring that to the Pacific Northwest.”
Although the film festival will hold screenings earlier in the week, the festival will officially kick off with an opening night screening of Songs From The Hole, a new movie directed by Contessa Gayles, this Friday, April 26at 6:00 pm. The film tells the story of the film star, James “JJ’88” Jacobs, as a young offender who spent a lot of time in solitary confinement and developed his voice as an artist to deal with the pressures of what happened to him while he was in solitary confinement.
Jacobs will be present for the screening and will join producer/activist Richie Reseda after the film in a panel discussion about the film moderated by Ijeoma Oluo.
“I am really happy to be able to share this story of liberation and also this kind of larger issue of dehumanization that happens when you put people in solitary confinement,” says Price. “He [Jacobs] used music to mentally cope with that and Contessa Gayles tells his story through traditional kind of documentary means but also through like a visual album as well.”
The film festival provides a platform for local Black filmmakers to showcase their work, and, according to Price, there will always be a place at the Black Film Festival for them to screen their films and share them with SBFF’s audiences. The SBFF screens films from every kind of corner of the Black perspective, although, historically, Black people have not been depicted in media in the best ways and have not been reflected in the experiences and stories that they have had.
Over the span of three months Price and a team of curators opened submissions and found films from all over the country to discuss and view.
“We then sit down and watch and discuss every single film and last year we went through over 200 films to be analyzed,” says Price, who says that they welcome volunteers to help them screen film submissions to the festival.
“If you love watching ten hours of film, then this is a way that you can also participate and help us get through all the movies that we have,” says Price with a chuckle.
According to Price, there is so much talent out there in the Black community and being able to help filmmakers from all around find their audience and spread their message through film has been something that she and her colleagues at SBFF are honored to be a part of.
“This film festival is a great opportunity to see our different stories, narratives, and perspectives depicted in cinema, and finally as behind the camera or in front of the cameras well,” says Price. “You can find something that you like and there are bound to be films for everybody.”
“[For me] To be able to be a part of something that allows me to share films from all over with a mass audience has just been one of the most amazing things that my life has ever led me to. I feel like my life mission is kind of being met,” she added.
Tickets and passes for the Seattle Black Film Festival are available at the official website for the festival at seattleblackfilmfest24.eventive.org. There you can buy individual tickets or passes that will allow you to see all of the films over the course of the entire weekend.
Learn more about the 2024 Seattle Black Film Festival