REEL UNITY PAIR: Dis-Placia: Vacants in the Village / Ije

2021 BIBFF Official Reel

The 8th Annual Black Film Festival features over 80 films from 16 countries on October 6-11, 2021. We are proud to bring this amazing group of "Official Selections" to Baltimore City both in our Virtual Theatre and at the SNF Parkway Theatre in Baltimore's Station North Arts District. Enjoy the films and be sure to use the unique pairs and shorts programs to have you own #ReelUnity moment.

Ije

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. 

Dis-Placia: Vacants in the Village

"Blight is the flood used to drown Black communities." It isn't an accident, its strategic economic violence by policy. Community activists and organizers work diligently to counter the disinvestment, devaluation and displacement of Baltimore's Black communities.

Dis-placia: Vacants in the Village is the third part of Fight Blight Bmore's series to increase awareness about blight in Baltimore. It builds on part I, a transmedia exhibition, and part II a community-based hack-a-thon to create a feature-length documentary film that exposes what blight is, how it came into being, what must be done to address it and how the community is doing its part to solve the problem.

Dis-placia delivers an Afrofuturist critique of local policy, real estate

development, and business engagement's impact on community development efforts in Baltimore.