SNF Parkway Theatre

REEL UNITY PAIR: Disco / Sundays in July

Disco is a street artist and poet of peace who spends most days selling his drawings at the corner of Wayne & Berkley in Philadelphia, PA. In this energetic and unflinchingly honest dive into his universe, we get a taste for his unrelenting vision for the future of his community. An impassioned declaration of all it takes to survive and thrive in modern America.

BMORE SHOWCASE: Day 6 / Holiday Hit

United States (2022) - Tiffani Bliss Brown

MARYLAND PREMIERE

In the very short span of six days, a hardworking, loving, fiercely devoted son must come to terms with the pain and finality of losing his beloved mother to Alzheimer's disease while struggling through the feelings he has for the newly hired nurse he employed to be her nighttime caretaker.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Blue Hour / Greater Than Ourselves: The Legacy of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.

United States (2023) - J.D. Shields

Two personal journeys intersect when a struggling young photographer is hired for a cheap last minute portrait gig. The unfolding photo session, while transient, leaves an indelible mark on both women.

SGL SHORTS: Wonders, Final Sale, Eating Papaw on the Seashore, 7 Minutes of Heaven?, Flamingos on the Field, DogFriend (Hundefreund)

United States (2023) - Director: Huriyyah Muhammad

MID-ATLANTIC PREMIERE

Hardworking moms, Teeni and Cherice don’t ask for much. Like everyone else, they are on the grind, just trying to make a better life for themselves and their toddler. Struggling financially, things get worse when they come home to find an eviction notice plastered on their door. 

While WONDERS is a response to the eviction crisis across the country, at its heart is a celebration of the wisdom of our elders and the magic of our babies. It speaks to community, personal power and legacy presented with humor and imagination.

BOKEH SHORTS: Mutual Feelings, 15 Minutes, In My Garden, Jahleel & Star

United States (2022) - Director: LaQuin Alexander

WORLD PREMIERE

What starts as a casual night of beers, music and catching up leaves two longtime best friends at a crossroads which they may not make it past together.

MUTUAL FEELINGS is a short film that explores the changing dynamics of friendship as we enter our 30s. Meant to honor the real-life nature of best friend convos-turned-arguments, and the struggles of navigating platonic relationships as we get older, the project adopts an intimate approach to storytelling. 

DMV SHORTS: Black Icarus, Do You Trust Me?, The Legacy of Lee's Flower Shop, Outside Line / For All Have Sinned

United States (2022) - Jimmie Thomas Jr.

In the Deep South, a father battles his drug and alcohol addiction while trying to be a father to his son.

BMORE SHORTS: Amor, The Ballad of Mecca Graves, Gas Money, Homecoming, Just A Kid From Baltimore / Feature: Black America Is...

United States (2022) - Director: Loria King

MARYLAND PREMIERE

Reclaiming our narratives from monolithic stereotypes, Black America Is... defies the idea that there is a singular experience of being Black in America. Instead, highlighting diverse Black stories, we explore the richness and complexity of our culture to create a more authentic portrait of Black identity.

Black America Is… highlights the complexity of Blackness, allowing audiences to engage with the uniqueness that comes with our shared yet individual experience. Black identity has no limitations. There is power in the freedom of knowing that anything we do or experience as Black people is Black. As the nation currently grapples with white supremacy, its racist past, and how it has vilified and criminalized the image of Black people, this documentary explores a broader mosaic of what it means to be Black in America.

REEL UNITY PAIR: A Little Chilli / Let The Church Say

United States (2022) - Director: Rafiq Nabali

In a time of racial upheaval and a multitude of woes affecting marginalized communities, a young, African American filmmaker journeys to the heart of the Black experience to find the answer to a daunting question: Is the Black church dead?

Through the years of oppression and sacrifice, one thing has remained: The Black church and its impact on Black culture today. Nevertheless, in the light of the current decline in church attendance amongst Blacks and the loss of its central role in African American communities, some would argue that the Black church is dead. Is it true?

BLM SHORTS: Finding Us, AT ALL COSTS, The Conscious Subconscious of A Black American, The Kalunga Line, Are We Still / Feature: The Carnival: 125 Years of the Penn Relays

United States (2022) - Kathryn Carlson

BALTIMORE PREMIERE

Georgetown University sold hundreds of enslaved people to stave off bankruptcy, scattering them across the South, never to see each other again. With the help of DNA databases, their descendants are reconnecting six generations later. FINDING US is a portrait of four descendants who are using their unique talents to regrow the family trees felled nearly two centuries ago.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Interception: Jayne Kennedy • American Sportscaster / Wrestled Away: The Lee Kemp Story

United States (2019) - Director:  Riley Hanlon

MARYLAND PREMIERE

BLACK LIVES MATTER SHORTS: Black Saviors, prolyfck, blactor, For Tigray, Ancestors, Ring Ring / The Sun Rises in the East

The Sun Rises in The East chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Led by educator and activist Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building more than a dozen institutions, including its own African-centered school, food co-op, newsmagazine, publisher, record label, restaurant, clothing shop and bookstore. 

The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians and poets at its highly sought-after performance venue, and it served as an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Congress of Afrikan People, as well as comrades across Africa and the Caribbean.

HOSANNA SHORTS: Finding Ubuntu, Pretty Boy, Things That Remain, Wolf and Cub / Feature: HUSH

Kenya, Malawi (2022) - Director: Annette King and Ishmael Azeli

MID-ATLANTIC PREMIERE

"Finding Ubuntu" is a documentary spotlighting a Congolese hero, Maick Mutej, who emerges as a human rights advocate helping thousands of refugees in Malawi while in the midst of his own crisis.

Reel Unity Pair: Nana's Boys / SLOW BURN

Nana's Boys is a bittersweet love story about two Black men, who despite their history, current circumstances and sometimes callousness attitude have a deep care for each other. Amari wants to understand his place in the world while Q needs to be open that plans change. 

When an explosion rattles NYC into a lockdown - without power or cell phone signals, Amari and Q are forced to confront the fragility of their partnership. The explosion only accelerates the cracks in their once picture-perfect connection. The conflicts over secrets, faith and purpose are layered to showcase a pair afraid to confront the fragility of their partnership.

HOSANNA SHORTS: Stoopin, A Beautiful Wedding, Daddy's Eyes, Mechanic's Rose, Maternity, Round Boxes, Young Phoenix, Sons of Toledo

After receiving the early morning news of his younger brother’s murder, a mourning barber pushes through the muddy waters of grief to find the courage to do the impossible - give his brother one last cut.

Multi-Screening: The Conversation, Dis-Placia: Vacants in the Village

James and Nia, a heterosexual married couple have a discussion about what sparked their love affair, confront their conflicting thoughts about having children and the future of their relationship. However, Nia has a secret to reveal.

Multi-Screening: First Week Out, Breathe.

In 1979, Larry Williams entered prison and was released 42 years later.

FIRST WEEK OUT follows Larry’s pivotal first week of freedom. Follow Larry in his first week out as he tries to make sense of his past, navigates life in a re-entry home, reunites with an old prison friend, applies for a job, meets with a new mentor, and forges a path forward.

Research has shown that the first week out of prison for formerly incarcerated men and women will define their future success or failure. After serving their sentences, it is vital for individuals to have an opportunity to become a functioning member of society.

Every week there are more than 10,000 people in America like Larry experiencing their first week out of prison. Within three years, two out of three won’t make it and will end up back in prison. We wanted to tell Larry’s story to encourage viewers to join the thousands of people and organizations across the country helping individuals like Larry beat the odds.

REEL UNITY PAIR: How Power Looks / A Walk In Her Shoes

How Power Looks explores methods of establishing power within the historical context of the University of Virginia. This film juxtaposes Jefferson’s “Academical Village” as a backdrop with current students of color dressed in regency era colonial garb made from African Kente cloth. The students wear white face, and sing about the inception of the African Diaspora stemming from forced displacement due to the transatlantic slave trade. This functions as an institutional critique by foregrounding the power and absurdity of whiteness at this institution while nodding to the atrocities that made this form of whiteness possible. By appropriating whiteness through the use of makeup, costume and song, this video indicts the University of Virginia’s glossy erasure of its troubled history and compares it to the erasure of black history caused by slavery which UVA still benefits from today.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Ije, Finding Fellowship

In the wake of the 2020 End SARS protests against Nigerian police brutality, Ije learns that she has been admitted to pursue her education in an Ivy League School in the United States. Motivated by Chika, her outgoing cousin and roommate, Ije agrees to go out in Lagos to celebrate this good news.

At the club, they meet two young men (Ema and John) with whom they immediately hit it off and have a good time. Sparks fly between Ije and John as they experience strong chemistry. So, at the end of the night, John offers to drive Ije and Chika home.

However, during the drive, they are stopped by two Nigerian police officers. 

REEL UNITY PAIR: The Black Disquisition / BECOMING A QUEEN

The Black Disquisition is an affecting true story of the traumatic event in a boy’s life that fractures his self image and the difficult conversation his parents must have with him about race in America. With its avant garde narrative structure and rotoscope animation this film illuminates how a brief childhood encounter can alter a life well into adulthood.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Prose / The Neutral Ground

An English exam takes two college students on a journey of defining their relationship

REEL UNITY PAIR: First Week Out / Fire in Little Africa

In 1979, Larry Williams entered prison and was released 42 years later.

FIRST WEEK OUT follows Larry’s pivotal first week of freedom. Follow Larry in his first week out as he tries to make sense of his past, navigates life in a re-entry home, reunites with an old prison friend, applies for a job, meets with a new mentor, and forges a path forward.

Research has shown that the first week out of prison for formerly incarcerated men and women will define their future success or failure. After serving their sentences, it is vital for individuals to have an opportunity to become a functioning member of society.

Every week there are more than 10,000 people in America like Larry experiencing their first week out of prison. Within three years, two out of three won’t make it and will end up back in prison. We wanted to tell Larry’s story to encourage viewers to join the thousands of people and organizations across the country helping individuals like Larry beat the odds.

HORROR / THRILLER SHORTS: Together, What The Future? Normalized, The Graveyard Shift / This is [Not] Who We Are

"The happiest place in America is Boulder, Colorado" -- said no Black person ever. This is [Not] Who We Are is a documentary film exploring the gap between Boulder, Colorado’s progressive self-image and the lived experiences of its small but resilient Black community. Its through-line is the story of Zayd Atkinson, a university student who was performing his work study job cleaning up the grounds of his dorm when he was threatened by a police officer and, soon, by eight officers with guns drawn. He lived to tell the story many Black men don't survive to tell.

While it has a unique history, Boulder is emblematic of liberal, white, university-based communities that profess an inclusive ethic but live a segregated reality. The film explores the interconnected issues of land use, affordability, racial and class-based segregation, educational equity, and policing.

BMORE SHORTS: Boston Photograph, Scrunchies, Always in Bloom, Mask, Missing Figure, All I Have Left Is Memories / This is My Black

Things have drastically changed for the choir students at Pine Forge Academy, a historically Black boarding school nestled in the hills of Pennsylvania. The students return to a school in a time when anti-blackness is rising and a deadly virus is sweeping the world. Through raw dialogue, inspirational music, dance, poetry, and percussion these students endeavor to make sense of their identity, their faith and the fractured world around them.

MUSIC AND MYTHICAL SHORTS: Black Fire, No Sugar No Cream, High Power, Assaman, Hommage to Mama / BREATHING BLACK

Breathing Black follows nine Black Baltimoreans as they find joy amidst the global COVID-19 Pandemic and a summer of reckoning with the continued genocide of the Black body after the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

WHO DO YOU LOVE SHORTS: Smoke, Lilies and Jade, Oxtail, Neighbors, Thrupple

Alex, a young Harlem Renaissance artist and writer, plays around at love and life until he meets Beauty, appropriately named, who makes no bones about his same-sex desires. Troubled and confused, Alex wavers on the brink of passion until a challenge posed by his girlfriend forces his hand.

SAME GENDER LOVING SHORTS: Code Switch, Taking the Long Road Home, (Un)claimed, Body Language, Her, Unsaid / MotherHOOD

A Mother endures hardships and becomes a community activist while raising her children in the poverty and drug stricken "640” neighborhood of Washington D.C.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Paper Line / Bermuda

Seven pledges get the shock of a lifetime when they unknowingly sign up to join secret fraternity of black martial artists at an HBCU in Florida. Most of the pledges go in expecting a severe form of physical and mental hazing that is in line with the stereotypical Greek hazing. Unbeknownst to the pledges, they are attempting to join a fraternity of martial artist who live by a strict code of silence and discipline.

DMV SHORTS II: Boundary / Odessa's Reign / Reader / Ten Feet Wide

A housekeeper experiences a brief episode of anxiety while looking after a yuppie couple's house for the day.

REEL UNITY PAIR: Becoming Black Lawyers, IS THE UK INNOCENT? Black Lives Matter

When these five Black lawyers set out on their journeys to receive a professional legal education, they did not realize that they would have to struggle against additional battles even more challenging than the rigors of learning the law in a hypercompetitive environment. They discover the contradictions of studying in an institution that idealistically represents "justice" for all.

Multi-Screening: An Uninvited Guest, One Pint at a Time

Three White people and one Black man wordlessly enjoy dinner while in the front yard a disheveled Black man is brutally assaulted by police. The sounds of his suffering seem to only momentarily distract these strange people from their meal. However, as events outside escalate, one of the guests, the Black man, grows increasingly anxious. As his demeanor changes from numb to responsive, the people around him grow uncomfortable.

Multi-Screening: Ira Aldridge, The Road to Justice

This is the amazing true story of a black American actor from New York City in the 1800s who immigrates to Europe overcomes racism in the Shakespearian theater community and achieves worldwide fame....including becoming the first black man to perform Othello on a London stage.

BMORE SHORTS II: Dreams Of My Father / The Steward / Baltimore Boys / The Purgatory of Ghosts and Grief / Children Of Paris / Twenty

En route to an audition, aspiring actress Leila stops at a motel and hooks up with one of the locals. After swallowing a weed edible, she is flooded with paranoia and insecurity about her physical appearance as a transwoman. To make matters worse, everywhere she turns she sees the apparition of her biggest tormentor. 

Will she summon the courage to vanquish the demons of her past once and for all?