AAWIC Film Festival On the Reel: Amplifying Black Women’s Voices in Film

The National Urban League is proud to partner with African American Women in Cinema (AAWIC) to present the visionary work of some of today’s most compelling voices in film. Join the filmmakers for a specially curated selection of films that reflect the richness, complexity, and power of our experience. Prepare for a unique celebration of cinematic craft and creativity, bold storytelling, and fresh perspectives.

AAWIC Collective Series Volume 1 
Featuring:

• Love Always, Eartha - Dierdra McDowell
• Freedom Day - Rianne Pyle
• InVade - Eunice Levi
• Who Told you that your Black is not Beautiful - Karen Moore

Blues Born of Fire - By Karen Moore
Blues Born of Fire is a love offering to the Black women who carry blues in their bones and fire in their spirit. Inspired by Nina Simone’s Four Women, this poetic documentary unfolds in three acts: Reckoning, Reimagined, and Remembrance. In Act I, Black Woman Blues, we meet the ache—the generational weight of sorrow, survival, and song. Act II reimagines the women Nina gave voice to—Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing, and Peaches—through original poetry and visual storytelling that dares to see them beyond stereotype, as sacred, complex, and whole. In Act III, For Nina, we return home—with gratitude, with reverence, with a lyrical embrace of the woman who taught us to set truth to music. Told through verse, movement, and cinematic beauty, Blues Born of Fire is not just a retelling—it’s a reclaiming. A testimony. A poetic prayer for every Black woman who has ever been called too much and still dared to rise 

Weight of Sugar - Jingqiu Guan(jing-cho) 
Filmed on location at a renovated historic mill, Bernard Brown/bbmoves’ latest short film uses the lens of sugar to illuminate some of the lasting effects of colonialism on women of color. With support from a strong community, a young black woman guides us toward ascension, releasing the vestiges of oppression scattered. 

Soon - Adji Cissoko 
The project started as a music concert produced by Courtney Carey of Courtney's Stars of Tomorrow ,focusing on African American spirituals .Initially intended as a live performance in uptown Manhattan, the pandemic forced the concert's cancellation; instead it became a live stream and later a dance film. Like so many other artists during the pandemic, the film's choreographer, dancer, and musicians worked separately in different parts of the country to create their contributions, which only came together on the editing table. (A year later, most of them still haven't met face to face!) The film's multiple layers of references and comments to the history of BIPOC and particularly Black people in this country are obvious. However, while almost all of the film's visible, audible, and behind-the-scenes collaborators are members of the African Diaspora, the circumstances and timelines of their arrival on this continent are quite disparate, adding additional view points to a narrative that still hasn't divulged all its secrets. 

Lowellyfe -The Only Way Out is Through - Roobi Gaskins 
Agui Luz, survivor of the Tower of Aeries collapse, seeks refuge from his survivor’s guilt at a mysterious clinic—only to find himself caught in a deeper test, one that may reveal a calling he’s spent years trying to escape. 

Songs of Black Folk - Alene Bryant  
Led by composer and symphony conductor, leading Black musicians in the Pacific Northwest band together to create new traditions on Juneteenth. POV Shorts: SONGS OF BLACKFOLK premieres 11/25 on @PBS.  Co-presented with LA TimesShort Docs.#POVShortsonPBS
https://www.pbs.org/pov/films/songs-of-black-folk/ ;

Silent No More
More than a film, Silent No More represents a “movement without walls”—a growing movement of mentoring, connection, advancement and placement, that transcends traditional barriers and creates new pathways for women in ministry and leadership. Produced by a Holloman / Dr Sujay productions, and participants of the REAL Black women in ministry THRIVE initiative by the Lilly Endowment, the film highlights powerful stories of resilience, calling, and courage, mentoring and creating opportunities —while honoring the legacy of biblical women and the ongoing impact of Black women shaping ministry today.