PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The BlackStar Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday, August 3. It has grown tremendously over the past eleven years, and has even caught the attention of the Academy Awards nominating committee.
Festival director Nehad Khader said the BlackStar Film Festival aims to give a voice to stories of people that are often unheard in the mainstream. "We're a Black, brown and Indigenous film festival," she said.
It runs through Sunday, August 7 with an itinerary of 77 films curated from all over the world. Maori Karmael Holmes, artistic director and CEO of BlackStar Projects, said they hope to uplift independent films, similar to the way some independent music artists have been able to put out their own music by growing their own fan base.
"We've been thinking about, how do we create that same dynamic for audiences to know these filmmakers follow them and support their work even if the industry is not paying attention to them," said Holmes.
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The films range from family-friendly to R.
"Intergenerational programming, films about aging and dementia, films about organizers, queer stories, Indigenous stories," detailed Khader. "We have a horror film this year from New Zealand."
Among the standouts, she said, is one called "Storming Caesars Palace," about "a really powerful and large movement of mothers and domestic workers in Las Vegas. It's not something that's necessarily in our curriculum."
In 2020, Blackstar became one of 23 international Oscar-qualifying festivals for documentaries, and in 2021 for film shorts.
"In the beginning of COVID, theaters weren't open," explained Holmes, "so the Academy had to very quickly shift how they were making things deemed eligible for the Academy Awards."
The festival has operated under a hybrid model since 2020, so visitors can watch films either in person or from home.
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