28th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival -

From Press Release

October 4, 2022

Dear Film Center Community,

We’re thrilled to announce that passes for the Gene Siskel Film Center’s 28th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival are ON SALE NOW!

The Black Harvest Film Festival is Chicago’s annual showcase for films that celebrate, explore and share the Black, African American, and African Diaspora experience. This year’s festival takes place November 4 through 20 in person, with select titles and programs available November 21 through 27 online. The festival curates both short and feature-length films, proudly presenting influential auteurs and emerging filmmakers of color side by side.

Passes are on sale for $60 each, providing you with six tickets to regular film presentations, which can be redeemed for both in-person and virtual films. This lets you enjoy six festival films at a reduced rate!

For an even better deal, consider becoming a Film Center member. For members, festival passes are 50% off, at $30 each. Members also enjoy an array of other exciting perks, including $6 individual tickets year round. You can find out more about our membership program here and become a member by clicking the button below.

Individual movie tickets will be available for sale on October 17, when we announce our full festival lineup. For a sneak peak, check out some highlights below…with plenty additional titles and surprises to come!

Select programs in our 28th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival include:

GET OUT ALIVE – Documentary Feature
In January 2020, Chicago multimedia artist Nikki Lynette’s celebrated stage play “Get Out Alive” premiered in the LookOut Series at Steppenwolf Theatre, before the pandemic shut the stages of the city down. Electric and thrilling, this film adaptation of the show uses storytelling, song, dance and visual media to Nikki’s offbeat and honest approach to share her mental health journey. Artist Nikki Lynette, director Roger Ellis, and additional cast and crew scheduled to attend.

NANNY – Narrative Feature
In this psychological horror fable of displacement, Aisha (Anna Diop), a woman who recently emigrated from Senegal, is hired to care for the daughter of an affluent couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) living in New York City. Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind, Aisha hopes her new job will afford her the chance to bring him to the U.S., but becomes increasingly unsettled by the family’s volatile home life.

REWIND & PLAY – Documentary Feature
Paris, 1969, famed jazz pianist Thelonious Monk performed at the 3,000-seat Salle Pleyel concert hall. Before the concert, he recorded an episode of the French television show “Jazz Portrait,” hosted by pianist Henri Renaud. In this daring work of non-fiction filmmaking, director Gomis examines not the interview, but the raw archival footage – the moments not seen by the television audience – where it becomes painfully clear that the host and producer are only interested in the musician if he plays voiceless and silently, without speaking about his experiences as a Black artist during a time of social and political unrest.

JASMINE IS A STAR – Narrative Feature
In this family-friendly charmer, Jasmine is a sixteen-year-old with albinism (lack of pigment in the hair, skin, and eyes) who is determined to make it big as a professional model in her hometown of Minneapolis, while attempting to go unnoticed in every other aspect of her teenage life. As her family supports her best they can, Jasmine learns to tap into her talents, embrace her identity, and find her voice.

FROM THE BLOCK – Shorts Program
Homegrown and homemade, Chicago talent is on display in this dynamic and diverse program that showcases a range of genres spliced together for one uniquely moving local lineup.

In Lorenzo Leyva’s hilarious and heartfelt BERMUDA, Toni is turning 25 and still living with her controlling family, when she decides she needs to embrace her womanhood and her sexuality, and find her freedom.

In the bold SILENCE OF CLARITY, director Amir George crafts a sci-fi marvel where individuals cope with their stutters through a radical form of therapy.

Director Charlene A. Carruthers matches history with poetry in THE FUNNEL when Chicagoan Trina, in an attempt to recollect her family’s history, encounters a familiar spirit, which opens her eyes and heart to a new gift.

In Taylor Dominique Mason’s SANTÉ, the De la Torre children barely know one another. When their father dies, the siblings come together to decide where to spread his remains, reopening old wounds and restoring old memories.

Shiloh Tumo Washington’s BROTHER, WHERE ARE YOU? is a powerful invocation of the work of James Baldwin, the words of Ghassan Kanafani and the images of Gordon Parks, when upon receiving a letter from his incarcerated brother, a man is forced to reckon with the faltering relationship and his own losses.

Filmmakers scheduled to attend.

We’re also pleased to present several film classics, including a 50th anniversary screening of BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972), directed by Sidney Poitier and Joseph Sargent; and 35mm presentations of Michael Schultz’s COOLEY HIGH (1975) and a 30th anniversary screening of Spike Lee’s MALCOLM X (1992).