The 14th iteration of the BlackStar Film Festival returned to Philadelphia from July 31 to August 3 with a robust program championing independent Black, Brown, and Indigenous film and media artists. BlackStar’s commitment to uplifting such voices is especially resonant due to the Trump administration’s sweeping dismantling of DEI measures; the festival’s 92 films from around the globe showcased cinema as a tool for experimentation, liberation, and resistance. Festival director Nehad Khader wrote in the program guide, “We want them to mobilize our creativity for defiance, community building and world making.”
Setting the tone was the sold-out world premiere of TCB: The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing (2025), a lively biography of educator, author, and organizer Toni Cade Bambara, directed by Louis Massiah and Monica Hernandez. Other notable premieres include Kahlil Joseph’s genre-defying BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2025), an adaptation of his critically acclaimed art installation (full disclosure: I was a writer on this film), and Jenn Nkiru’s debut feature documentary, The Great North (2025), which uses the history of Manchester, England, to explore the relationship between architecture, politics, and the body.
As usual, this year’s programming leaned toward the experimental, with a healthy mix of emerging and established filmmakers. Among these were several films related to art or by multimedia artists, including Cauleen Smith and Kevin Jerome Everson, who both had entries in the Experimental category: The Volcano Manifesto (2025), a trio of films in which Smith critiques capitalism and colonialism’s extraction of the earth’s resources, and Dooni (2025), a poignant ode to legendary queer disco singer Sylvester.
Of the art-related films, a few stood out as testaments to the challenges of creating art, be they financial, emotional, or psychological. Director Tadashi Nakamura explores all three in his documentary Third Act (2025), a portrait of his late father, Robert A. Nakamura, a photographer, filmmaker, and educator sometimes called the “Godfather of Asian American media.” Nakamura, who was imprisoned at Manzanar, one of 10 internment camps established in the United States during World War II, co-founded Visual Communications, the first Asian-American media arts organization, and co-directed the 1980 Asian-American feature film Hito Hata: Raise the Banner (1980). Nakamura speaks candidly about how his internment at Manzanar transformed him, instilling in him feelings of self-loathing and a desire to be White, and how art and political organizing helped him process and transmute these painful experiences.
Money is a source of anxiety in two art-related short films that screened at the festival: LaTajh Simmons-Weaver’s Budget Paradise (2025) and DeeDee Casimir’s Last Hoorah at G’Baby’s (2025). Both narratives revolve around two young Black painters struggling to make work. In Budget Paradise, protagonist Chester steals art supplies and whatever time they can find to create, checking into a motel room for two hours in order to paint. A further nod to the art world can be found in the scene where Chester checks into the motel, as videos reminiscent of Kenneth Anger’s films play behind the counter. Haitian-American director DeeDee Casimir also offers a realistic portrait of the struggling artist’s life in her short film, which follows Naja (played with great sensitivity by Kailah Ami), an art student who faces eviction after spending the cash inheritance she received from her grandmother.
Artist Kevin Jerome Everson, whose practice encompasses painting, sculpture, and photography, renders the invisible visible in his art. Everson has directed nearly 200 experimental films, each rooted in his desire to capture the gestures and acts of labor that fascinate him. Unconcerned with genre distinctions, his films blur the line between the archival and present day, documentary and fiction. He’s built an impressive oeuvre of films that revel in the everyday textures of Black life. Dooni, in which Everson juxtaposes archival footage of gliding roller skaters with a eulogy written by preacher Walter Hawkins, is a welcome addition to that trove.
In line with the spirit of the festival, this year’s art-related films acknowledge the difficulties that accompany a life in art. These filmmakers, in touch with the lineages they come from, pay homage to their ancestors, crafting tributes that acknowledge the labor required to keep one’s dreams and visions alive.
