The Light That Lingers: Celebrating Over 30 Years of Black Filmmaking

To be Black and creative is to be an alchemist, transforming fragments of lived experience into temples of imagination. Saidiya Hartman’s concept of ​“critical fabulation” resonates deeply here — the idea that we must conjure what has been lost or stolen from us to tell our stories. The world building at Black Harvest is an example of that conjuring. It’s the filling in of gaps, the reclaiming of narratives erased or forgotten. It’s proof that our stories have always existed, even when history tries to silence them.

On February 12, a selection of films that all took home accolades will be screened again at the Gene Siskel as part of the Best of the Black Harvest Film Festival showcase, with submissions for the 31^st annual Black Harvest Film Festival opening March 1 to filmmakers across the diaspora.

As curator of this festival, I’m honored to highlight six standout films — each its own portal, bridging our collective past with the futures we long to inhabit. These films are raw, tender and unapologetic, each embodying the elegant resilience and re-imagination embedded in Black cinema. In a world that often feels like a battleground, storytelling is survival work that sustains us, a sanctuary that holds us steady.

Ààrẹ (The Expansive Man)

Runtime: 4 minutes, 14 seconds

Ààrẹ (The Expansive Man) is a visual and emotional triumph, blending Yoruba culture, spirituality and self-discovery into a narrative that feels both timeless and urgent. In the film, director Taoheed Bayo explores the expansiveness of identity, revealing how we are shaped by the dynamic interplay of past and future selves. Ààrẹ is a radiant celebration of Black cultural pride, reminding viewers that growth is never linear but always transformative, unfurling cycles of remembering and becoming.

Thoughts Become Things

Runtime: 6 minutes

Thoughts Become Things transports viewers into the mystical journey of a young Bermudian Gombey dancer seeking to connect with his ancestors. Director Marquedelle Philip Rodriguez invites us to reflect on the stories carried in our bloodlines, showing us how the past continues to guide and inform our becoming. Blurring the lines between tradition and fantasy, Thoughts Become Things reminds us that ancestral ties are never severed — they are living, breathing forces shaping our futures.

For Those That Lived There

Runtime: 6 minutes, 18 seconds

Both a lament and a battle cry, in For Those That Lived There, director Shawn Antoine II captures the erasure and displacement caused by gentrification in Chicago’s Cabrini Green community. The film transcends geography, revealing how gentrification strips not only homes but histories, memories and a sense of belonging. Through a poetic lens, the film holds space for mourning these losses while calling viewers to resist the forces that displace and erase. It’s a vigil for what was and a rallying cry for what remains.

Abefele

Runtime: 6 minutes

Short and profound, Abefele is a meditative, experimental reminder that the unseen is always with us, guiding us toward wholeness. Director Amir George’s immersive vision frames spirituality not as passive belief but as an intentional practice — a call and response between the seen and unseen that demands listening, movement and ongoing participation with our ancestors.

Ebony

Runtime: 20 minutes, 45 seconds

Ebony is a testament to the quiet yet monumental strength of a single Black mother in Brownsville, Brooklyn, as she raises six children while navigating systemic inequity and the unrelenting challenges of poverty. In this celebration of radical hope, director Sean-Josahi Brown refuses to flatten Black life into mere tragedy, instead capturing the tenderness embedded in survival, reminding us of how Black mothers, especially, sustain entire worlds with love, care and resilience.

Crown

Runtime: 7 minutes, 58 seconds

In Crown, director La’Tia Owens delves into the emotional weight of texturism and its impact on a young Black girl’s self-worth. With intimacy and honesty, Crown uncovers the layers of harm inflicted by Eurocentric beauty standards while celebrating the quiet power of reclamation, reminding us that Black hair is not just an aesthetic — it is a history rich with identity and pride. This love letter to Black beauty affirms that our crowns are always worthy, no matter the world’s attempts to diminish them.