The BlackStar Film Festival, an annual celebration of underrepresented voices in cinema across Philadelphia, took place earlier this summer.
The festival — which occurred from July 31 to Aug. 3 — is a platform for independent film that highlights the work of artists from around the world as it promotes a message of empowerment for minority voices in the industry. Although the Annenberg School for Communication has not hosted the festival since 2022, after doing so for a few years, the Penn community has remained involved with the event.
When the festival began in 2012, the Lightbox Film Center screening room at Penn’s International House hosted the event. However, after International House closed in 2020, the viewings moved to the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. This summer, theaters across Philadelphia — including the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center, the Wilma Theater, and the Suzanne Roberts Theatre — showed films.
Maori Karmael Holmes, the artistic director and CEO of the BlackStar Film Festival, also serves as the curator-at-large for film at the Annenberg Center and as the mediamaker-in-residence at the Annenberg School.
Since joining Penn in 2020, Holmes has worked to empower voices through her contributions to Annenberg. While the festival focuses specifically on “Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists,” Holmes has expressed that she uses her position at Annenberg to highlight “films of many different genres and makers of different backgrounds.”
The Penn-BlackStar connection has also woven its way through classrooms and lectures: Students at the University are invited to both attend and participate in the festival, gaining valuable exposure to underrepresented creators. BlackStar also offers internship opportunities to students, allowing them to help organize the festival itself.
Penn faculty also work with the festival by integrating it into their curricula and pushing their students to interact with the material shown each year. Some faculty even participate: In 2015, Penn music professor Guthrie Ramsey made his filmmaking debut at BlackStar.
That same year, Provost John L. Jackson Jr. — who was then serving as the dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice — moderated a panel on media and social justice at the film festival, demonstrating Penn’s ability to further the festival’s impact.
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The connection between Penn and the BlackStar Film Festival demonstrates the educational value of empowering minority voices and serves to represent a commitment to uplifting marginalized groups and educating both the public and the University community.
