Welcome Packet (2023 Greaves Filmmaker Seminar)

Welcome to BlackStar’s 2023 William + Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar

We are thrilled to present the 2023 William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar–BlackStar’s third iteration, and our first time holding space in person for this convening. It’s our pleasure to continue elevating the work of Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists pushing boundaries in visual culture, while leaving room for thoughtful examination of that same work. We invited artists whose practices have inspired our own thinking around creative process and world building, seeking to extend the space created during our virtual gatherings, which proved to be compelling, imaginative, and necessary. We encourage you to keep a notebook nearby to hold on to key insights, but more importantly, we hope you find inspiration and community among your peers that extends beyond this moment.

We would like to thank Louise and the Greaves family for allowing us to use their name in homage to their groundbreaking work as social change oriented filmmakers and their legacy as supporters of Black filmmakers. In this spirit, the BlackStar team hopes to create an environment that is imbued with togetherness, respect, love, and a challenge to expand our perspectives in the field of visual culture.

We would like to thank our Advisory Committee: Cauleen Smith, Darius Clark Monroe, Loira Limbal, Louis Massiah, and Michael Gillespie who have been our chief conspirators. Special thanks to our featured artists for your passion and vulnerability— Aidan Un, Alex Shaw, The Black Aesthetic Collective (Jamal Batts, Leila Weefur, Nan Collymore, and Ra Malika Imhotep), Cauleen Smith, Cheryl Fabio, Cornelius Moore, Deneane Richburg, Estevan Benson, Eva Kozanecka, Joyce Chung, Lela Aisha Jones, Louis Massiah, Maegan Houang, Mimi Bai, Nesanet Abegaze, Qigemu (April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin), Siyou Tan, Terence Nance, Tong Wu, and William Tyner. We’d also like to thank this year’s wellness instructors for keeping us grounded: Craig, Kate Johnson, Nicole Pollard, and Sudan Green. A loving shout out to our wonderful facilitators for keeping the pace and, more importantly, the intention: Farrah Rahaman, jean-jacques gabriel, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Sheena Sood, and our brilliant facilitation designer Mia Herndon. We thank the entire BlackStar team for making this seminar possible through patience, attentiveness, and care. Last but not least we would like to thank our board of directors, funders, corporate partners and members for believing in and encouraging our vision.

We reiterate that we hope you arrive with an open heart and mind, prepared to respect all you encounter. Please be patient with yourself, with us, and with the technology. Stay hydrated, take deep breaths, and keep yourself nourished of mind and of body. We look forward to sharing this experience with you.

Much love and peace, Amber, Maori & Sydney

Seminar Instructions

For the best experience, we suggest you read this welcome packet closely.

Films to Watch

Film Screenings

There are films that you should watch via Eventive at watch.blackstarfest.org before the designated session time. They will be available starting March 10 and you will have 24 hours to finish watching a program once you unlock it). The films are:

• Rainbow Black, directed by Cheryl Fabio

• Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy, directed by Cheryl Fabio

• Random Acts of Flyness, Season 2, Episodes 1-6, created by Terence Nance

• The T.C.B. School of Organizing, directed by Louis Massiah

Packing for the Seminar

All seminar programming will take place indoors, but attendees will need to travel between several buildings on campus. All venues are located within a 10 minute walk of each other. If you’ll be coming in from out of town, keep in mind that it’s winter in Philadelphia and it will likely be cold outside.

Some items to consider bringing when packing:

• Warm winter clothing

• Umbrella in case of rain or snow

• Notebook and pen

• Reusable water bottle

• Comfortable clothes if you plan to attend a yoga or mindfulness session

• Chargers for phones and other devices

• Wellness/self-care items—prescription medications, herbal medicine, vitamins and supplements, snacks, etc.

Technology to Explore

We will be using two tools during this year’s seminar: Eventive (for film screenings) and Slack (for ongoing conversations). Do try to familiarize yourself with these platforms prior to joining us this weekend.

Eventive

You will need to display your Eventive QR code to scan into every seminar program. Find it by logging in directly here or by clicking on your profile in the upper right corner at watch. blackstarfest.org and selecting “Account Settings” and then “My Passes.” We suggest you take a screenshot as well for quick reference throughout the weekend.

Select film programs and supplemental films will be available on the watch platform starting Friday, March 10, through the end of the seminar. You will have a 24-hour window to watch these programs once you “unlock” them. All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

If you have not previously used Eventive you will need to create an account in order to access the aforementioned films. The email address for this account must match the email used to purchase a pass for the seminar, in order to access seminar films. Click “Login” in the top right corner of the watch page to begin.

Slack

We have opened a Slack workspace during the seminar where you can share ideas, reach out for technical support, and connect with other attendees. We encourage you to take advantage of this platform throughout the weekend – it is open now and will close shortly after the seminar ends. We will send program updates, changes, and reminders via email as well as on Slack.

Wellness

We encourage you to prioritize your wellbeing and do what you need to do to take care of yourself during the seminar. Please review the seminar schedule and plan ahead of time about what you may need in a conference setting. See packing suggestions related to wellness and selfcare in the Packing for the Seminar section above.

Local practitioners will be offering yoga and mindfulness sessions throughout the seminar. More information about these sessions is available in the Seminar Schedule section.

COVID-19 Policy

We strongly recommend attendees to be fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to attending the seminar. During the seminar, masks will be required in all indoor spaces—including in screenings—except for when eating or drinking.

Please keep the following in mind when masking during the seminar:

• KN95 or N95 masks are the most effective masks to prevent COVID-19, followed by medical grade masks covered by cloth masks (“double masking”).

• Face shields do not provide enough protection to exempt mask requirements but are optional to wear in addition to a KN95/N95 or double-mask.

• Please note that you should not layer a mask over a KN95/N95 mask.

If you feel sick or are exhibiting signs of a communicable illness (like COVID-19 or the flu), please stay home.

Accessibility

All seminar programming will take place within a 0.5 mile radius on Drexel’s University City campus. The area is mostly flat and connected by sidewalks with curb cuts at intersections.

All Drexel facilities, including restrooms, are ADA-compliant and wheelchair accessible.

Much of our programming will take place in theater-style spaces with fixed seating. A limited number of armless chairs will be available for those who need them.

All films streaming online will include closed captioning with the exception of the work-in-progress sample. All films screening in person will include open captioning, with the exception of select clips used during workshops.

Please reach out to the team if you have any access needs that were not included in your registration. We will do our best to make accommodations.

Headshots by Naomieh Jovin

As an additional offering, BlackStar is providing free headshots for a limited number of seminar attendees. Photos will be taken by Naomieh Jovin in the URBN Annex at 3401 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. We recommend signing up prior to the seminar, as slots are available on a first come, first-served basis. Click here to sign up for a 15-minute headshot session.

Seminar Instructions

For the best experience, we suggest you read this welcome packet closely.

Getting to University City

If you’re flying: You can technically get to University City via public transportation, but it will take over an hour and require several transfers. We suggest taking a yellow cab, Uber, or Lyft to and from the airport.

If you’re taking the train: All seminar programming is within close walking distance of the 34th St Subway Station off of the Market-Frankford Line.

The following bus lines all have stops located within two blocks of the URBN Annex building: 21, 30, 31, and 49.

If you’re driving: Street parking in University City is available but very limited. Most parking spots near the venues are metered—you’ll likely have to pay for parking, and many spaces have time limits during the day. We recommend downloading the meterUP app to pay for parking.

There are a number of paid parking garages nearby. Drexel’s official guest parking is located at 3330 Market Street, which is a 5-minute walk from the main seminar venue. The entrance to the parking garage is on Ludlow Street between 33rd and 34th streets. More info on parking at Drexel can be found here.

Our Supporters

The Greaves Seminar is produced with support by Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, the Mellon Foundation and the Wyncote Foundation.

BlackStar Projects and its programs are generously supported by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Critical Minded, Ford Foundation/JustFilms, Forman Arts Initiative, Gucci Changemakers Impact Fund, Independence Public Media Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Jordan Black Community Commitment Fund, Mellon Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Fund, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Perspective Fund, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Fund, Philadelphia Foundation/Black Community Leaders Fund, Pop Culture Collaborative, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous members, businesses and organizations.

Seminar Venues

URBN Annex

3401 Filbert Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

URBN Center

3501 Market Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Bossone Research Center

3140 Market Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

The Study at University City

20 South 33rd Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Penn Live Arts

3680 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

Penn Live Arts

URBN

Bossone

Supplemental Programming

In addition to official seminar programming, BlackStar is also co-presenting several other public events during the week of the seminar. Please note that some of these programs require advance sign-up and/ or ticket purchase.

Exhibition: Terence Nance: Swarm

Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania

118 S. 36th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104

Opening March 10th at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Terence Nance: Swarm is the first solo museum presentation dedicated to the artist’s genre-defying and innovative practice. Curated by BlackStar’s own Maori Karmael Holmes, the exhibition highlights the artist’s experimentation in film, video, television, sound and performance during the ten-year period spanning 2012 to 2022.

The ICA is free to all and open Wednesday through Sunday, 12-6pm.

Screening:

Terence Nance

at Penn Live Arts

March 15-16, 2023

Penn Live Arts — Montgomery Theater

3680 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

These screenings are part of a series of public programming for Swarm, an exhibition at the ICA co-presented by BlackStar spotlighting Terence Nance’s work. Please note that these screenings are public and non-specific to the seminar. Therefore your seminar pass will not grant you entry to the screening. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance here.

Screening: Terence Nance Spotlight

Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30pm

A taste of Nance’s fascinating cinematic work in an evening of short films.

Terence Nance will join us for a post-screening conversation with Rashid Zakat.

• Blank Canvas (2021)

• Guisado on Sunset (2020)

• Jimi Could Have Fallen from the Sky (2017)

• Swimming in Your Skin Again (2014)

• Univitellin (2016)

• Vortex (2022)

Screening: An Oversimplification of Her Beauty

Thursday, March 16 at 7:30pm

2021 | 84 min | US, English

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty utilizes a mix of live action and animation to tell the story of a relationship between Nance and a lovely young woman as it teeters between the platonic and romantic.

DRYLONGSO (1998)

Screening:

Cauleen Smith’s DRYLONGSO in 4K!

Saturday, March 18 at 7:00pm

Bryn Mawr Film Institute

824 Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010

1998 | 86 min | by Cauleen Smith (US)

Art student Pica (Toby Smith) is horrified by the rate at which young Black men in her neighborhood are dying—“going extinct,” as she sees it. Setting out to document their lives in Polaroid snapshots, Pica and her friend Tobi (April Barnett) are drawn into a search for an elusive serial killer terrorizing their city. At once a buddy movie, murder mystery, romance, and incisive social commentary, Drylongso stands as a seminal work of American independent filmmaking.

Director Cauleen Smith will join us for a post-film conversation with Brittany Webb.

Seminar attendees receive one complimentary ticket to this screening. Click here and use waiver code Seminar23 to claim yours. Please note that this screening takes place in the Philadelphia suburbs and is accessible via public transportation.

Schedule — Overview

Thursday March 16

9 am - 10 am

10 am - 12:30 pm

Check-in + Breakfast

Film Program + Discussion:

The Films of Cheryl Fabio + The Sarah Webster Fabio Center for Social Justice

URBN Annex: Lobby

URBN Annex: Screening Room

1:30 pm - 3 pm

3 pm - 3:45 pm

3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

6 pm - 7:30 pm

Director’s Commentary: Terence Nance

The Art of Not Knowing:

Mindfulness for Creatives**

Welcome Reception

URBN Annex: Screening Room

URBN Annex: Pearlstein Gallery

The Study: Drafting Room & Studio 3

Keynote Address: Bossone Research Center: with Cauleen Smith Mitchell Auditorium

Friday March 17

8 am - 9 am

Yoga: Awaken + Align*

9 am - 10 am Breakfast

9 am - 5 pm

10 am - 12 pm

1 pm - 1:45 pm

3 pm - 4:30 pm

3 pm - 4:30 pm

3 pm - 4:30 pm

5 pm - 7 pm

5 pm - 7 pm

5 pm - 7 pm

Headshot Sessions*

Film Program + Discussion:

The Asian Diaspora

Spirits Up! Grounding Meditations**

Tracing Sacred Steps:

Black Embodiment on Ice

Musical Identity by

Creating Your Own Instrument

The Study: Drafting Room

URBN Annex: Lobby

URBN Annex: Screening Room

URBN Annex: Pearlstein Gallery

URBN Annex: Pearlstein Gallery

URBN Center: Room 120

Emergent Breakout Session** URBN Center: room 123

Generative Futures for Filmmakers: URBN Center: Room 120

AI Imaging + Film Panel

Storytelling Rituals: URBN Center: Room 141

Eco-processing Film with Bunna

Emergent Breakout Session** URBN Center: Room 123

Saturday March 18

8 am - 9 am

Yoga: Morning Flow** The Study: Drafting Room

8:30 am - 9:30 am Breakfast

9:30 am - 10:45 am

11 am - 12:30 pm

Work-in Progress Screening + Discussion: URBN Annex: Screening Room

The T.C.B. School of Organizing

React | Respond Roundtable

URBN Annex: Screening Room

*These events require advance sign-up and/or ticket purchase as they are being held in addition to seminar programming. See more info in the seminar instructions and supplemental programming sections.

**Space is limited and admission will be granted on a first-come basis.

Schedule — Thursday, March 16

Check-In + Breakfast

9:00–10:00am

URBN Annex — Lobby

Check in, pick up your pass, and grab a bite to eat. Coffee and light breakfast food will be available while supplies last. 2023 Greaves Seminar sweatshirts will be available to pre-order and copies of Seen will be available for purchase onsite.

Film Program — The Films of Cheryl Fabio and the Sarah Webster Fabio Center for Social Justice, curated by Cornelius Moore

10:00 am - 12:30 pm

URBN Annex — Screening Room

This conversation with Cheryl Fabio will examine community-based documentary filmmaking which preserves history, offers a space and training for digital storytellers and promotes advocacy. The program will feature clips from the films of Cheryl Fabio.

Cheryl’s filmmaking endeavors began in 1975 with the 31 minute documentary Rainbow Black, a portrait of her mother, poet and Black Arts Movement trailblazer Sarah Webster Fabio. Originally shot on 16mm, The Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA) at Indiana University digitized and preserved the film in 2013.

Cheryl’s film work, known to employ collaborative and innovative fundraising strategies, is a vital part of the Sarah Webster Fabio Center for Social Justice (SWFCenter), which Cheryl formed in 2004 and based in East Oakland. SWFCenter productions include films on the history and

legacy of the Oakland Blues (Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy, 2017), shorts on the formerly incarcerated (I’ll Tell My Story, 2014) and the impact of housing insecurity on children and their families in Oakland as well as an examination of the policy decisions that have created and maintain their situation (A Rising Tide, soon to be completed). The Center also presents film programming for the Oakland community.

Rainbow Black

1975 | 31 min | by Cheryl Fabio

Originally shot in 16mm by her daughter Cheryl Fabio, Rainbow Black is a portrait of poet, literary critic and educator Sarah Webster Fabio (19281979). She was a trailblazing figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the establishment of Black Studies who influenced the founders of the Black Panther Party.

Evolutionary Blues: West Oakland’s Music Legacy

2017 | 24 min (excerpt) | by Cheryl Fabio

Wherever Black Americans settled in the country, the blues music they brought took on a local flavor. Beginning in the 1940’s in West Oakland, the influences came from the musicianship of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. Entrepreneurship created a community that provided work, homes and life’s necessities which included a fully developed music scene. Hear from many regional blues legends – some of whom have since passed – and those they have influenced.

Bright Horizons

2014 | 3 min | by Lajont Hutchings

Bright Horizons is a short featured in I’ll Tell My Story, a collection of films created by formerly incarcerated people and executive produced by Cheryl Fabio and the Sarah Webster Center for Social Justice. Lajont describes his coming-of-age journey and later used this film to convince the parole board to end his parole.

A Rising Tide (work-in-progress)

2023 | 20 min | by Cheryl Fabio

A Rising Tide examines the social and emotional impacts of housing insecurity on children and their families in Oakland from new perspectives, while dissecting the structural causes rather than blaming unhoused individuals for their situation. The film scrutinizes the policy decisions that have created and maintained the housing crisis in the region.

Director’s Commentary with Terence Nance

1:30–3:00 pm

URBN Annex — Screening Room

Special Instructions: If you haven’t previously seen the second season of Terence Nance’s Random Acts of Flyness, please watch all six episodes of season two on HBO Max before the director’s commentary, as Terence Nance will be showcasing excerpts of the show and speaking over them.

Random Acts of Flyness | 2022

Exploring the metaphysics of Black life through avant-garde storytelling, the second season follows Terence (Terence Nance) and Najja (Alicia Pilgrim), a couple working towards healing generational wounds and reintroducing themselves to the ways of their ancestors. Each of the six episodes explores a different dimension while presenting a rich tapestry of audio and visuals to illustrate the spiritual practice of Black liberation.

The Art of Not Knowing: Mindfulness for Creatives with Kate Johnson*

3:00–3:45 pm

URBN Annex — Pearlstein Gallery

Join us for an experiential period of embodied mindfulness practices designed to support creative courage and wellbeing. Our time together will include sitting meditation to help gather, calm and steady our minds, and mindful movement practices rooted in qi gong and dance improvisation, which will help us relate to the experience of “not knowing” as the fertile ground of creativity. Bring your journal, a sense of humor and an open mind. Dress to feel comfortable taking off your shoes and moving between sitting, standing, and lying down.

Welcome Reception

3:30–5:30pm

The Study — Drafting Room (2nd floor)

Join seminar participants, presenters, and BlackStar staff to celebrate the start of the seminar! You can expect music, hors d’eouvres, and a cash bar in a light-filled space overlooking Market Street.

*Please note that space for these sessions are limited. Attendance will be permitted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Keynote Address: DREAMING THE PRESENT

by Cauleen Smith

6:00–7:30pm

Bossone Research Center — Mitchell Auditorium

“…before I had status and before I had a pager…”

— A Tribe Called Quest, Low End Theory, Excursions

7 ideas about moving images

The keynote will reflect on lessons learned over the years about the economic, social, and spiritual dimensions of filmmaking. From Curiosity to ferocity. From humility to beauty. I am still learning, but I hope some of the stuff I have learned may be of interest.

This program is open to the public. Your seminar pass grants you access to this program at no cost—no ticket purchase required. Tickets for guests can be purchased here.

Cauleen Smith

Schedule — Friday, March 17

Yoga — Awaken & Align with Nicole Pollard*

8:00–9:00am

The Study — Drafting Room

With a focus on breath and feeling, this class offers accessible alignment cues to engage any yogi, from beginners to seasoned practitioners. This class is offered with music, and will help wake you up and get you going and flowing into the rest of your day. All bodies are welcome.

Headshot Sessions with Naomieh Jovin

9:00am–7:00pm

URBN Annex — Lobby

As an additional offering, BlackStar is providing free headshots for a limited number of seminar attendees. Photos will be taken in the URBN Annex at 3401 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Click here to sign up for a 15-minute headshot session.

Breakfast

9:00–10:00am

URBN Annex — Lobby

Come grab food and chat with other participants—or take a moment to center yourself before the first session of the day. Coffee and light breakfast food will be available.

Film Program —

The Asian Diaspora, curated by Joyce Chung

Presenters: Joyce Chung, Mimi Bai and Siyou Tan

10:00am–12:00pm

URBN Annex — Screening Room

This program highlights Asian artists who explore different forms and expressions of Asian Diaspora by using moving images including narrativeled film to experimental video art. Each artist incorporates indigenous practices and beliefs and popular myths and legends of their own ancestors into their work as a medium to convey the complexity of adaptation and integration in transnational migration.

Hide and See | 2022 | 20 min | by Mimi Bai

Hide and See is an experimental narrative film collaboration between Sam B. Jones and Mimi Bai that activates Bai’s clay and textile sculptures, transforming them into shrouds for two ghostly figures. The specters employ bushcraft and camouflage techniques as they pursue and evade one another across time and space, while the film shifts between black and white and color — alternately concealing and revealing the ghosts within their environment. Hide and See premiered at the Maryland Film Festival in May 2022.

In Full Bloom | 2019 | 10 min | by Maegan Houang

In Full Bloom tells a story of memory. The film follows a Vietnamese American woman living in her apartment who becomes confronted by relics from her past, causing a void to manifest itself in the middle of her floor. Her life is upended when worms open a black hole in her house and threaten to take all her stuff. The imagery that populates In Full Bloom was drawn from her own experience with her grandfather.

Reality Fragment 160921 | 2018 | 14 min | by Qigemu (April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin 林思颖) Reality Fragment 160921 explores how our own histories are under curation, and as such, our perspectives become the central point in the building of personal realities. The film follows two people in their process of reality-curation, as they create their own spaces against and via understandings of distance, as they go through the motions of growing themselves by growing their universes. Audiences partake in the thoughts of two witnesses and how by seeing these two people, worlds are merged. Reality Fragment 160921 transcends the boundaries of distinct genres, encompassing docu-fiction, experimental narrative, and video art in its structural form and use of aesthetic storytelling mechanisms.

Hello Ahma | 2019 | 16 min | by Siyou Tan

The film follows a curious eight-year-old adjusting to a new life with her parents in America. The passing of her beloved grandmother in Singapore yields first encounters with painful truths about life, death, and cultural dislocation. After the world premiere at TIFF in 2019, Hello Ahma competed at a number of festivals, including Berlinale where it had its European premiere. The film also competed in the International Short competition of Dokufest.

Spirits Up!

Grounding Meditations with Sudan Green*

1:00–1:45pm

URBN Annex — Pearlstein Gallery

Spirits Up! Grounding Meditations with Sudan will be a 45-minute session intermixed with gentle movement as well as a 20-30 minute guided meditation and music. If you have the space, you can bring anything you’d like to make yourself comfortable (mats, pillows, favorite blanket). We will also have some mats and seat pillows available for you onsite.

Tracing Sacred Steps: Black Embodiment on Ice

Presenters: Aidan Un, Alex Shaw, Deneane Richburg, and Lela Aisha Jones

3:00–4:30pm

URBN Annex — Pearlstein Gallery

In 2022, Brownbody, a Minnesota-based organization grounded in African diasporic perspectives, premiered Tracing Sacred Steps, an affirmation of sacred Black spaces. Blending dance, theater, and figure skating, this on-ice performance pays homage to the sacred practice and practitioners of the ring shout. Centered firmly in the worldview that movement generates pathways to remembering, archiving, release, and restoration, Brownbody engaged deeply in multimodal collaboration to shape the sonic and movement elements within Tracing Sacred Steps, and ultimately to translate this live production into its cinematic form.

During this hybrid panel-workshop, panelists will discuss the complexities of navigating the technical, creative, and cultural frameworks in the development and filming of Tracing Sacred Steps. Attendees will experience the “Mining, Witnessing, & Archiving” method utilized in the choreographic process, and will also explore embodied approaches to cinematography.

Given the intimate nature of this session, panelists request that those attending please commit to staying the entire session.

*Please note that space for these sessions are limited. Attendance will be permitted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Schedule — Friday, March 17

Musical Identity by Creating Your Own Instrument

Presenter: Estevan Benson

3:00–4:30pm

URBN Center — Classroom 120

This workshop will guide participants through the theory and process of creating musical instruments. We will focus on how sonic identities can lead to stronger projects. Participants will be introduced to foundational technical concepts through software, hardware, and traditional tools. Through theory and examples, participants will leave with an understanding of why defining your “sound” is as important as defining your visual language.

Emergent Breakout Session

3:00–4:30pm

URBN Center — Classroom 123

Facilitated breakout sessions are open-ended, participant-driven, small group conversations around seminar-related topics. The topic of each session is determined by the people in the room, and seminar facilitators will be present to help folks make connections and keep conversation flowing. Bring ideas you want to discuss, or just come along for the ride!

Generative Futures for Filmmakers: AI Imaging + Film Panel

Presenters: Will Tyner supported by Eva Kozanecka and Tong Wu

5:00-7:00pm

URBN Center — Classroom 120

Advances in machine learning are revolutionizing how images, video, and audio are produced, modified, circulated, and seen. This workshop explores the opportunities and impacts of these tools on Black, Brown, and Indigenous cinema as the quality and capabilities of generative technologies continue to advance. We will share insights, strategies, and techniques for using generative models within visual media practices to empower filmmaking communities to critically engage with media generation tools in ways that align with their values and shape future applications of AI technology in film.

Participants are asked to bring a smartphone, tablet or other device that can connect to the internet.

Storytelling Rituals: Eco-processing Film with Bunna

Presenter: Nesanet Abegaze

5:00-7:00pm

URBN Center — Classroom 141

In this workshop, participants will examine an ancient storytelling technology: the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Participants will learn about the way that Ethiopians have used the ceremony to build community and transmit knowledge between generations.

Participants will then learn how to make a photographic developer from coffee for black and white photographic film. The caffenol-c developer will be made with culinary and nontoxic ingredients. Participants will then be led through the process of developing film.

In connecting the Ethiopian coffee ceremony to eco-processing film processes, workshop facilitator Nesanet Abegaze invites participants to collectively reclaim the ritualistic nature of storytelling and reimagine what healthy, sustainable image-making looks like.

Emergent Breakout Session

5:00-7:00pm

URBN Center — Classroom 123

Facilitated breakout sessions are open-ended, participant-driven, small group conversations around seminar-related topics. The topic of each session is determined by the people in the room, and seminar facilitators will be present to help folks make connections and keep conversation flowing. Bring ideas you want to discuss, or just come along for the ride!

*Please note that space for these sessions are limited. Attendance will be permitted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Schedule — Saturday, March 18

Yoga — Morning Flow with Craig*

8:00–9:00am

The Study — Drafting Room

Shine bright and early with Craig (they/them pronouns) in a morning yoga flow filled with heart and hip openers! Start off day two of the Greaves Filmmaker Seminar with smiles, sweat and sun salutations. Asana will end with a calming sound bath and meditation.

Breakfast

8:30-9:30am

URBN Annex — Lobby

Come grab food and mingle with other participants—or take a moment to center yourself before the first session of the day. Coffee and light breakfast food will be available.

Film Program — Work-in-Progress

Screening + Discussion with Louis Massiah

9:30am–10:45am

URBN Annex — Screening Room

During this session, filmmaker Louis Massiah and editor Monica Henriquez welcome your feedback and thoughts about a documentary-in-progress. This session is intended to be an exchange of ideas about a filmmaker’s work rather than a traditional Q&A session, although you are welcome to ask questions.

The T.C.B. School of Organizing 2023 | 30 min excerpt

The TCB School of Organizing is an 87-minute documentary biography of the novelist, filmmaker and cultural worker Toni Cade Bambara.

Considered one of the most influential American fiction writers of the 20th century, Bambara used art in the struggle for self-determining AfricanAmerican communities and in feminist battles against patriarchy. The film is structured as a primer on how cultural production can be an organizing strategy, using lessons from Bambara’s life shared with us through interviews with friends, colleagues, and a younger generation of artist activists. Voices of the film include writers

Toni Morrison, Nikki Finney and Sonia Sanchez; filmmakers Haile Gerima and Shirikiana Aina; cultural theorists Clyde Taylor, Eleanor Traylor and Manthia Diawara; feminist literary scholars

Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Alexis Pauline Gumbs; biographer Linda Homes; and archivist scholars

Makeba Lavan, Malkia Redmond and Conor Tomas Reed. Louis Massiah is the director/ producer and Monica Henriquez is the editor/ co-director of the film. Karma B. Smith is the associate producer.

Selected “lessons” from the TCB School of Organizing, which will be screened as rough-cut excerpts at the 2023 William and Louise Greaves Seminar at BlackStar include:

“Kicking the Door Open,” on the need to create liberated spaces, as exemplified by The Black Woman, the 1970 anthology, edited by Bambara; “Delegations,” on the responsibilities of cultural workers working in alliances; “Are You Sure, Sweetheart, That You Want to be Well?” on the need for cultural workers to self-reflect, selfcritique and for self-care; “Sister is a Verb,” on our responsibilities to each other;“Be Responsible for Your Eyes,” on the urgency to create narratives that reflect our understanding of the world.

React | Respond Roundtable with The Black Aesthetic Collective

Presenters: Jamal Batts, Leila Weefur, Nan Collymore, and Ra Malika Imhotep

11:00am–12:30pm

URBN Annex — Screening Room

The React | Respond roundtable aims to dissolve the boundaries of media consumption, and what we know of the Black moving image, through an engagement with Black Cinema inspired by the form of popularly circulated response/ reaction videos. With this series of performative engagements, we set out to explore the sensorial, comedic, scientific, and emotional valences of Black viewership practices.

There are multiple examples of how reactions/ responses manifest in Black life, as seen in the videos prevalent in contemporary Black digital culture. From the many versions of “response” videos and films to the repetitive scenes of antiBlack violence, we are interested in surveying the ways the nervous system carries the imprint of exhaustion, displacement, catharsis, grief, love, and violence and how these visceral experiences are specific to Black cinema. There are many examples of the psychic, bodily, and emotional aftermath of consuming trauma, especially the emotional cost to Black audiences of this consumption. With this panel, we are experimenting with what it might mean to offer queer readings of the Black moving image as counter-narratives to the capitalist academic standard of presented and published thought.

The Black Aesthetic Collective

The Black Aesthetic is a curatorial collective that critically engages and experiments with a living and evolving archive of Black visual culture. With Black film as a point of departure, we organize screenings, exhibitions, and publications. Through practices of study, resource sharing, and collaboration we advance queer, liberatory, and accessible alternatives to the contemporary art landscape.

*Please note that space for these sessions are limited. Attendance will be permitted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Aidan Un

Aidan Un is a French-Korean-American filmmaker and photographer based in West Philadelphia. He works primarily in the genre of documentary and is interested in questions of culture, place, and identity. Recent works include Sisters of the Soil (2021), a short documentary film made in collaboration with Raishad Momar about a Blackowned bookshop in Philadelphia; The Ancestors Live (2020), a feature-length documentary about Kùlú Mèlé African Dance and Drum Ensemble; video and photo documentation of Modupúe | Ibaye: The Philadelphia Yoruba Performance Project, a community-embedded exploration of the city’s rich and diverse expressions of Yoruba-rooted traditions and culture. His work has been featured at the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, Mustard Seed Festival, The Outlet Dance Project Festival, New Urban Film Festival, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and BlackStar Film Festival. Aidan is also a member of traditional Korean percussion group URIOL and of the Philadelphia chapter of FICA (Fundação Internacional de Capoeira Angola/International Capoeira Angola Foundation).

Alex Shaw

Alex Shaw is a Philadelphia-based percussionist, sound artist/composer, cultural producer, and arts educator working in the field for over twenty years. Intercultural, interdisciplinary collaborations and compositions merging diverse percussion traditions, vocal textures, field recordings, and digital imagination encompass his current artistic focus. He is the director of Brazilian band Alô Brasil and performed with the award-winning Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra for over a decade. Alex has been commissioned to compose original music and sound design for film, theater and dance productions, and media installations including Denizen Arts’ Walk The (pink) Elephant (2022), Michelle Ortiz’s Arrival and Belonging (2021), and Brownbody’s Tracing Sacred Steps (2019-2022). Alex has also curated and produced dozens of performances and cultural programs, most recently Revivals of Blackness (2020-2022).

Alex is the former Artistic Director for Intercultural Journeys (2014-2020) and lead teaching artist for Young Audiences and World Cafe Live, for which he has also served as a founding board member since 2008. Alex holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA in World Percussion from the California Institute of the Arts.

Cauleen Smith

Cauleen Smith was raised in Sacramento, California and lives in Los Angeles. Smith is faculty in the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. Smith holds a BA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater Film and Television. Smith’s short films, feature film, an installation and performance work were showcased at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019. Smith has had solo exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, MassMoCA and LACMA. Smith is the recipient of the following awards: Rockefeller Media Arts Award, Creative Capital Film / Video, Chicago 3Arts Grant, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chicago Expo Artadia Award, and Rauschenberg Residency, Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts in Film and Video 2016, United States Artists Award 2017, 2016 inaugural recipient of the Ellsworth Kelly Award, 2020 recipient of the Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, and 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Cheryl Fabio

Cheryl Fabio spent her formative years as an Air Force brat, moving from one end of the country to the next. After the Air Force, the Fabio family settled in East Oakland, where she went through public school. Her mom, Sarah Fabio, from Nashville, Tennessee, set Cheryl up to go to Fisk University, luring her there to work with SNCC. Fabio has been working in photography and film since attending Fisk in 1967. On graduation, she returned to CA with a solid portfolio and was then accepted into Stanford’s Documentary program. Her first film, Rainbow Black: Poet Sarah Webster Fabio, is about her mother - a writer and poet. In 2015, Fabio produced and directed Evolutionary Blues… West Oakland’s Music Legacy. A Rising Tide is her third feature film.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Cornelius Moore

Cornelius Moore has a 45-year career as a film distributor, curator/festival programmer, and dedicated advocate for Black film from the United States, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. A native of Chester, PA and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, in the late 1970s he began programming for Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Film Project. For the past 41 years, he has been Co-Director of California Newsreel in San Francisco, the 54-year-old social issue film distribution and production company. He has directed its anti-apartheid project, the Southern Africa Media Center as well as its African American Perspectives collection which is focused on documentaries on Black American life and history. He also founded its African film distribution initiative, the Library of African Cinema. In 2023, he is stepping down as California Newsreel’s Co-Director and will remain active with the organization as Board Chair, strategist, and advisor.

Cornelius has been a judge for and a participant at film festivals in the US and internationally. He has served on funding panels for California Humanities’ California Documentary Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is a film curator and does this on a regular basis for San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora including its online bi-monthly program, the African Diaspora Film Club.

Deneane Richburg

Deneane Richburg (Artistic/Executive Director, Brownbody, Choreographer, Dancer, former Competitive Figure Skater) is the founder of Brownbody. Deneane grew up a competitive figure skater—in spaces where she had to check her blackness at the door, as world skating was dominated by whiteness and rooted in values that subjugated her ancestry’s truths. Working in this space, to quote Zora Neale Hurston, she always felt “most colored when [she was] thrown against a sharp white background.” Richburg realized the need to carve out space for herself and her ancestral history hence her decision to establish Brownbody. Since 2013 Brownbody has honored complex narratives of U.S.-based Black communities by taking participants on journeys that disrupt assumptions, disenfranchising ideologies, around blackness. Richburg received her MFA in dance and choreography from Temple University in 2007, an MA in Afro-American Studies from UW Madison, and a BA in English and African American Studies from Carleton College. Working with Lela Aisha Jones, Richburg was also the Cofounder of The Requisite Movers, a Philadelphia based program that supports the work of Black female choreographers.

Estevan Benson

Estevan Carlos Benson is a first-generation artist, sound designer, and composer based in Los Angeles, California. His work addresses technology, culture, and creative exploration through custom-built tools. He has toured as a VJ, teaches design in Southern California, and co-founded a virtual music instrument company, Gesture Audio.

Eva Kozanecka

Eva Kozanecka is a Polish-born filmmaker and producer. At Google, she co-leads a research program, Artists + Machine Intelligence, dedicated to building and sustaining a field of creative practitioners working with machine learning.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Jamal Batts

Jamal Batts, PhD is a curator, writer, and scholar. His work considers the relation between black contemporary art, sexuality, and risk. Recently, he curated the 2022 University of Pennsylvania MFA thesis exhibition, Imperative of Struggle. He is currently a Stanford University IDEAL Provostial Fellow in the Department of Art and Art History.

Joyce Chung

Joyce is the Curator at Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia. Her curatorial projects focus on Asian Diaspora art, new media art, performance, and intersections between feminism and visual arts. Chung is interested in exploring the complexity of identity and representation through the lens of the politics of place. Mostly recently, Chung curated an online exhibition as part of The Wrong Biennale 2021, the global digital art festival spanning across the internet. She has also worked at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, Kukje Gallery in Seoul, Hyundai Card in Seoul, and Performa in New York. Chung received a BA at Wesleyan University and a MA at the University of Chicago.

Leila Weefur

Leila Weefur (He/They/She), is an artist, writer, and independent curator based in Oakland, CA. Their practice, centered around video installation, examines systems of belonging, present in Black, queer, gender-variant life through eco-geography, erotics, and the sensorial memory. Weefur latest work, Tillage & Fury is showing at the ICASF as part of the group show, Resting Our Eyes. Weefur is an educator at Stanford University and a member of The Black Aesthetic.

Lela Aisha Jones

Lela Aisha Jones is a movement performance artist and embodied researcher that engages in artistic inquiry. LAJ is also a vocalist and communitygrounded organizer/curator that collaborates across worlds of practice. For her elegantly daring offerings, LAJ has earned a New York Dance and Performance | Bessie nomination, Leeway Transformation Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.

Her most recent artistic engagements and projects include a feature film and virtual ceremony titled Revivals of Blackness (2021) curated/commissioned by David Bradley for World Cafe Live (in collaboration with Aidan Un, Luke O’Reilly, and Alex Shaw) and Olney Embrace Project Revival Walks (2020/2021) commissioned by Ambrose Liu for Olney Culture Lab.

LAJ serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Brownbody, a St. Paul Minnesota-based Ice/ Stage dance company, where she restaged with Christine King an excerpt from the famed Jawole Zollar and Urban Bush Women work Walking with Pearl : Southern Diaries : Anybody Here, on ice, with a cast of black figure skaters. LAJ earned a B.S. at University of Florida, an M.F.A. at Florida State University, a Ph.D. at Texas Woman’s University, and is the Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College. LAJ was born and raised in the wonderful Tallahassee (old fields), FL and is based in Philadelphia, PA.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Louis Massiah

Louis Massiah is a documentary filmmaker and the founder of the Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia. Massiah has developed media production methodologies that assist first time makers author their own stories, including the Precious Places Community History project; the Muslim Voices of Philadelphia community history project, the Great Migration - A City Transformed and a current project The Tenants of Lenapehocking in the Age of Magnets.

Massiah’s documentaries include The Bombing of Osage Avenue, W.E.B. Du Bois – A Biography in Four Voices, two films for the Eyes on the Prize II series, and A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown His commissions include the President’s House site, a five channel permanent video installation for the U.S. National Park Service’ and a video installation for the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar.

Massiah has been a visiting professor and artistin-residence at Swarthmore College, Princeton University’s Atelier, the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the UPenn and Howard University. He is a MacArthur Foundation “genius award” fellow. In 2022-2023 he is Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Maegan Houang

Maegan Houang is a writer/director based in Los Angeles and Michigan. She is currently a co-producer on The Sympathizer (HBO) and previously served as a story editor on Shōgun (FX) and a staff writer on Season 2 of Counterpart (Starz/MRC). She also co-wrote Jamojaya directed by Justin Chon (Blue Bayou, Gook) and is currently writing Nekrokosm (A24) for director Panos Cosmatos (Mandy).

In 2018, she received a VSCO Voices Creator Grant to direct In Full Bloom starring Kieu Chinh (The Joy Luck Club). The short film premiered on Short of the Week and played at festivals including Fantastic Fest, Atlanta, Oak Cliff, Indie Memphis, New Orleans, LAAPFF and Sidewalk Film Festival. She recently directed two episodes of Three Busy Debras (Adult Swim/HBO Max) Season 2. Her new short film Astonishing Little Feet starring Celia Au and Perry Yung is currently in post.

Maegan has also directed music videos for artists such as Mitski, Vagabon, Charly Bliss and Hana Vu. Her videos have been recognized by SXSW, Noisey, Fact Magazine, UKMVAs, Stereogum, Pitchfork, and Vimeo Staff Picks. Her work primarily focuses on the complexity of the AsianAmerican experience, intergenerational trauma and her own experience living as a mixed-race American.

Mimi Bai

Mimi Bai is an interdisciplinary artist born in Xi’an, China, and based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice encompasses sculpture, drawing, and film and her work draws connections between labor, assimilation, camouflage, and survival as both a lived reality and fantasy.

Bai has exhibited at Artists Space, the Boston Center for the Arts, BRIC, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her films have screened at Rooftop Films, the Rockaway Film Festival, and the Maryland Film Festival. She was recently a SIP Fellow at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop as well as a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Interdisciplinary Work and a recipient of two Emergency Grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Bai attended the Whitney Independent Study Program from 2017-2018 and is a graduate of Alfred University (MFA, Sculpture) and Wesleyan University (BA, Sociology).

Website - mimibiyaobai.com

Instagram - @meemeebye

Monica Henriquez

I am a Venezuelan/Dutch freelance film and video editor/director who has worked for major broadcasters in the UK, USA, Europe and Latin America. I have been based in the UK since 1978. Having trained at the BBC in the 1980s, I worked across editing technologies from film, analogue tape to digital technologies.

As an editor I worked for several Channel Four projects on Latin America, notably the Marc Karlin “Nicaragua Series” 1985-1991; Maya Films “Stories for Cutzxatlán” 1989; and Faction Films “Fidel” 1998. I was the director/editor for “Gynecological Chronicles” 1992 and “Murder & the Feather Boa” 1996. I was the editor for the PBS series “WEB Dubois: a biography in 4 voices” 1995 and was the researcher/associate producer for “The Hugo Chavez Show” Frontline, 2008.

For the last 15 years I have been filming and building a digital archive on Venezuela in the times of Hugo Chavez, from his arrival on the scene through his death and beyond. In 2017, I edited the trailer for TCB: School of Organizing and since 2021, the full version of the documentary has been in progress.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Nan Collymore

Nan is a mother, writer, inter-disciplinary artist and an independent scholar. Her focus is on film, Black studies, critical fashion practice and the subsequent intrinsic tension between practice and theory, touch and vision and color and light. She is the Founder of L’habillement, publishing There Are Black People In The Future with Alisha B. Wormsley, member of The Black Aesthetic curatorial collective, Contributing Editor of Contemporary and, and she sits on the Advisory Board of the Association of Dress Historians.

Naomieh Jovin

Naomieh Jovin is a first-generation HaitianAmerican and a photographic artist. Her work utilizes appropriated photos from old family albums and incorporates her photographs to illustrate resistance and intergenerational trauma, and how we carry the experiences of our past and our family’s past in our bodies. She received her BFA in Photography and Digital Arts from Moore College of Art & Design (‘17). Her work has been featured in The Nation and Buzzfeed. She has photographed for the New York Times and Vogue Italia. She was selected as a Lens Culture 2021 Critics Choice winner, she was awarded an artist residence at the Inspiration Lab at the University of the Arts, and she was recently named a 2021 PEW Fellow in the Arts.

Nesanet Abegaze

Nesanet Teshager Abegaze is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, educator, co-founder of Azla Ethiopian Eatery, and co-founder of Mamush Studios, whose profound love of storytelling and community unifies her wide-ranging career. At Stanford University, Nesanet earned her BA in Human Biology, an interdisciplinary major that allowed her to explore science, history, and the arts. Following her tenure supporting non-profit organizations at the New World Foundation, she earned her MA in Education from UCLA and taught in South Central Los Angeles.

Since leaving the formal education sector, Nesanet has immersed herself in many creative fields. As Vice President of Operations at Atom Factory, she helped musicians realize their unique artistic visions. From there, she and her mother co-founded Azla, a plant-based Ethiopian restaurant inspired by the idea that the dining table is a space to share food and your life. Working with and listening to her mother inspired Nesanet to preserve her family history via her lifelong interest in film. Her short film, Bereka (2020), screened at Sundance Film Festival, and won best experimental film at BlackStar Film Festival. Today, Nesanet brings her extensive career and artistic experiences to Tesh Media Lab where she works on books, films, and teaches visual storytelling workshops.

Qigemu —

April Lin 林森

Jasmine Lin 林思颖)

七个木 Qigemu 七個木 is a duo consisting of coordinates April Lin 林森 and Jasmine Lin 林思 穎 exploring the interstices of movement, visual media, identity, and the global Asian diaspora as respectively, Chinese-Swedish and Taiwanese-American. Using the potential of this hybrid space, Qigemu engages in conversations dealing with bodies, information, and energies, and how these are conceptualized in the Internet Age.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Ra Malika Imhotep

Ra Malika Imhotep, ph.d (Ra/They) is a Black feminist writer, performance artist, and cultural worker from Atlanta, GA. Currently a UC Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow in Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside, they are also co-convenor with miyuki baker of a spiritual-political education project called The Church of Black feminist Thought. Their debut poetry collection, gossypiin, was published by Red Hen Press in 2022.

Siyou Tan

Siyou is a LA based filmmaker originally from Singapore. Her latest short STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. Her previous short HELLO AHMA, completed under the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, played in competition at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival and the 70th Berlinale. Most recently, she has been selected at Berlinale’s 2022 Talents Tokyo, Busan International Film Festival’s 2019 Asian Film Academy, the 2019-21 Universal Directors Initiative, and the 2021 Commercial Directors Diversity Program. She’s working on her first feature AMOEBA with the support of the Hubert Bals Fund and TorinoFilmLab’s ScriptLab.

As a visual artist with a printmaking background, Siyou has also worked as an Art Director at Jesse Dylan’s production company Wondros. Her work has garnered several awards, including a Cannes Lion, two AICP awards, a Ciclope Award and the Jury Award at SXSW. Her commercial clients have included Chanel, Mercedes, Nike, Taschen and Vanity Fair. She is a film graduate of Wesleyan University.

Terence Nance

Terence Nance is an Artist, Musician, and Filmmaker born in Dallas, Texas in what was then referred to as the State-Thomas community. Nance wrote, directed, scored, and starred in his first feature film, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2013, was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2014, and debuted his Peabody award-winning television series Random Acts of Flyness on HBO in the summer of 2018. In the fall of 2018, it was announced that Nance was tapped to write, produce and direct Space Jam: A New Legacy, starring Lebron James, and in 2020 Terence released his first EP, THINGS I NEVER HAD under the name Terence Etc. In 2020 he also partnered with filmmakers Jenn Nkiru, Bradford Young, Nanette Nelms and Mishka Brown to form The Ummah Chroma Creative Partners – a directors collective and production company. This team released KILLING IN THY NAME in collaboration with Rage Against The Machine in January of 2021. Nance is currently at work on healing, curiosity, and interdimensionality following the 2022 release of both Random Acts of Flyness Program II as well as his debut album, VORTEX.

Tong Wu

Tong Wu is a creative technologist at Google, focusing on AI-related socio-technological research and prototyping. Besides Google, she practices as a multimedia artist, using various media such as cinematography, 3D visuals, ML tools, and webpages to explore the evolving digital system.

Wu graduated from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and the photojournalism program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has exhibited her work internationally, including INDEX Biennale 2022 in Braga, Portugal, Koganechō Art Management Center in Yokohama, Japan, CURRENTS New Media Festival in New Mexico, U.S., International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) DocLab Session in Amsterdam, Netherlands, CultureHub & La Mama experimental theater club in New York, U.S., SandBox Immersive Festival Acceleration Program in Hangzhou, China.

Her art practice and work projects have received international awards and nominations, including nominees of the IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-fiction and Digital Storytelling, winner of the Digital Dozens Special Jury Awards by Digital Storytelling Lab of the Columbia University.

Seminar Artists + Presenters

Will Tyner

Will Tyner is a filmmaker and researcher on the Economic Opportunity Team within Search at Google. Outside of Google, William is a 2021-23 Firelight Media Documentary Lab Fellow and co-director of a film that provides an immersive and intimate look into the lives of Jeanelle Austin, Toshira Garraway, and Robin Wonsley— three organizers driving change in connection to the Minneapolis community and building pathways to justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.Leila Weefur

Facilitation Team

Mia Herndon

Mia Herndon is an acupuncturist, facilitator, podcast host and organizer focused on the healing of people and systems. She works with Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute and Right to the City Alliance. She’s on the board of Black Feminist Future. She’s based in Brooklyn, NY; was raised in Atlanta, GA and is the mother of a 17 year old Aquarian light.

jean-jacques gabriel

jean-jacques is a Haitian-born father, artist, and teacher living in Philadelphia. He started painting before he could walk, in his father’s studio, and later studied at the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. jean-jacques found yoga while at art school in 2001, and completed his first teacher training in Southern India in 2007. His first yoga students were children and prisoners. His work with Marshall Eddie Conway , former political prisoner and Black Panther , teaching yoga and nonviolent communication in prisons rooted his yoga practice and teaching in justice and freedom.

jean-jacques has taught in prisons, public schools, yoga studios, and national and international festivals. He currently leads the 200hr Yoga Teacher Training program at Studio 34 in West Philly, and is Yoga Alliance E-R YT 500 certified. jean-jacques is the co-creator of a yoga clothing clothing line with Philadelphia Printworks called “The Embodied Collection”. It was created to honor and inspire the efforts of people of color in creating wellness. The line is rooted in the words of Audre Lorde, “Caring for myself is not selfindulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.”

Sham-e-Ali Nayeem

Author of the poetry collection, City of Pearls (UpSet Press 2019), Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is a Hyderabadi Muslim American poet, sound practitioner, interdisciplinary artist and recovering social justice lawyer. Her poetry has appeared in Apiary, Platypus Press’ Wildness Journal, Dusie, Mizna among others and can be found in anthologies, including Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out (Olive Branch Press, 2005), Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Beacon Press, 2005) and Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence (Seal Press, 2008).

She has released two albums, City of Pearls (2019) and the upcoming Moti Ka Sheher (2023) featuring musical interpretations from her book resting in soundscapes ranging from classical rabab to self composed and produced electronica. Her work explores grief and loss, stories of diasporic Indian Muslim existence, ancestral transmissions, international solidarities and space to imagine.

Sham-e-Ali is the recipient of the 2022 Leeway Transformation Award and the 2016 Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship.

Farrah Rahaman

Farrah Rahaman is a Trinidadian cultural worker based in Philadelphia. She understands media in its most capacious form, being attuned to the forms of creative expression that highlight liberation practices. Rahaman claims her work in the tradition of radical, decolonial love and kinship, which is activated through curation, teaching, placemaking, and film-based practice. She is the Research and Curatorial Fellow at BlackStar Projects, Curator-in-Residence at Express Newark, and a doctoral student in cultural studies and communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently she is making a film about Trinidadian communist and Notting Hill Carnival founder Claudia Jones.

Wellness Instructors

Kate Johnson

Kate Johnson works at the intersections of spirituality, social action, embodiment, and creativity. She’s been practicing Buddhist meditation in the Western Insight/Theravada tradition since her early twenties and was empowered as an independent dharma teacher through Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s four-year retreat teacher training in 2020. She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School/Fordham University, and MA in Performance Studies from NYU. As a meditation teacher, Kate leads programs integrating meditation, restorative movement, and liberation theologies. She is the author of Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World.

Kate began facilitating organizational training and retreats after co-founding the Meditation Working Group at Occupy Wall Street in 2011. She went on to become a core faculty member of MIT’s Presencing Institute, and to design online political education programs for Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Currently, she works with leaders and organizations committed to sustainability and right relationships, using awareness and embodiment practices to inform strategic planning and organizational culture.

Nicole Pollard

Nicole Pollard is an artist, curator and yoga teacher. She came to yoga in 2015, after recognizing the absence of presence and movement in her life, and how that correlates with regulating her mood and emotions. Nicole received her 200-Hour Yoga Alliance Teaching Certification from Studio 34 Yoga Healing Arts in December 2021, where she currently teaches. In September 2022, she received her TraumaSensitive Yoga Teacher certification. Nicole enjoys teaching an alignment-focused practice with music that provides a necessary balance between activity and rest.

S. Craig

Craig (Sarah. Craig, pronouns: they/them) is a Black queer nonbinary yoga instructor based in Philadelphia PA. Craig hopes to cultivate space for rest, strength for resistance, and accessible & sustainable wellness practices to share virtually and in person. They see yoga as a space for restorative self-love, support and discovery. Craig values rest and recuperation, constantly interrogating what accessibility is and for whom. Craig’s vinyasa flows are paced by the live community class at hand; practicing and leaning into students’ needs and goals for practice for the day. Craig finds refuge in lots of prop usage, offering variation of poses, the simplicity of the present moment, and invites pause, rest and ease into practice with many giggles and jokes inbetween. Craig is also in pursuit of their master’s in Acupuncture from Won Institute of Graduate Studies and is happy to talk to anyone about acupuncture, herbs, meditation, and qi gong!

Follow @craiggyboiwellness on Instagram for their classes + events!

Scope of practice: accessible yoga, prop/ resource supported yoga, vinyasa, chair yoga, sound bath, meditation, immersing yin/yang/5 Element theory and principles

Sudan Green

Sudan Green is the founder of Spirits Up!, and an event planner, artist, writer, and yoga teacher (200hr YTT). Born and raised In Philadelphia, where he started Spirits Up!, Sudan is a Germantown native with the mission of bringing more healing, mental clarity, and healthier lifestyles to BIPOC communities through mindfulness, movement and creative arts.

Community Guidelines

BlackStar is a welcoming space for all to celebrate the achievements of filmmakers from all over the world. We welcome you to the third William and Louise Greaves Filmmaker Seminar and hope that you arrive with an open heart and mind, prepared to respect all you encounter.

When participating in BlackStar programs, please abide by the following community guidelines:

• Honor the boundaries of others.

• Refrain from assuming others’ genders and respect stated pronouns.

• Please do not take screenshots of artists, presenters, or fellow seminar attendees without consent.

• Please do not record, screenshot, or share any of the films that you will see during the seminar. The works presented belong to the makers; please respect that.

• Take care of yourself and help to maintain the wellbeing of those around you.

• Stalking, threatening, homophobia, racism, or any discriminatory behavior are not welcome.

• Engage in direct communication with staff before a public “call-out.” This applies to our staff and also participating artists and fellow attendees.

If you encounter any issues during the course of the seminar, you should feel free to bring it up directly with the person—or if it’s more comfortable, bring the issue to our team’s attention.

BlackStar Support

The quickest way to get in touch with the BlackStar team during the seminar will be via the Slack channel. You can also contact us via email using the information below.

If you have questions about programming or logistics, reach out to:

If you have questions related to Eventive or other technology, reach out to:

Amber Hunnicutt Seminar Producer amber@blackstarfest.org

Sydney Rodriguez Artist Programs Manager sydney@blackstarfest.org

Imran Siddiquee Chief Communications Officer imran@blackstarfest.org

Lendl Tellington Technical Director lendl@blackstarfest.org