A Preview of the 2025 Black Harvest Film Festival | Festivals and awards

With the fall chill in the air and the holidays on the horizon, the Black Harvest Film Festival is set to return to the Gene Siskel Film Center, November 7-16. The festival, programmed by Jada-Amina and Nick Leffel, presents an eclectic and vibrant array of Black stories whose diasporic origins and bold ingenuity bring cinematic warmth to a dedicated community. This year’s festival includes eight feature films, nine short film programs and a long list of guests including “The Inquisitor” filmmaker Angela Lynn Tucker and “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions” director Kahlil Joseph. There’s even a mystery movie.

In anticipation of Black Harvest, here are five films from the festival that should be on your radar.

Black girl

Over the past two years, Black Harvest has achieved point to include restorations and retrospective programming, such as Charles Burnett’s “The Annihilation of Fish” in 2024 and its return to John Singleton in 2023. This year, they welcome two “new” titles: the first being “Black Girl” by Ossie Davis. Davis, if you didn’t know, wasn’t just immortalized as Da Mayor in “Do the Right Thing.” He is also one of the great (black) directors of cinema. His first film, “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” for example, is often considered the first Blaxploitation film.

Additionally, his Paul Winefield-directed film “Gordon’s War” is considered a high point in the blaxploitation genre, while his direction of “Kongi’s Harvest” is touted as the first locally produced Nigerian film. The newly restored “Black Girl,” which stars Brock Peters, Peggy Pettitt and Davis’ wife, Ruby Dee, in a film about motherhood, sisterhood and black womanhood, offers audiences additional insight into Davis as an author.

Black Girl will be screened on November 16.

BLKNWS: General conditions

A documentary so ambitious it’s difficult to fully describe, Kahlil Joseph’s Afrofuturist debut feature, “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions,” is a work that blends time, black history, politics, art and literature through current events. It features several collaborators: Raven Jackson, Garrett Bradley, Arthur Jafa and Kaneza Schaal, and is often structured like a music album, oscillating between chapters and tracks. Sometimes we’re immersed in a YouTube video, other times we hear black thinkers thinking about exciting topics, or a journalist on a technologically advanced ocean liner, or WEB Du Bois living in Ghana.

All of this is thrown into a vat that transforms information, a medium often known for dehumanizing black people, into a revolutionary educational tool. Joseph will be on hand to receive the festival’s Visionary Award on November 9.

BLKNWS: Terms and conditions screens on November 9 and 16.

Seeds

I watched Brittany Shyne’s moving documentary, “Seeds,” twice and each time I was amazed by its depth, determination and humanism. Through his lens, we follow a group of black Southern farmers who work through legal and collective means to maintain their way of life. You see, very slowly, for decades in fact, they have been losing their farms to the banks and the extralegal means put in place by systemic racism. The rich black and white cinematography adds seriousness to an already important battle. At the same time, Shyne’s observant eye conscientiously captures the unique daily rituals and rhythms that mark the tangible lives of his subjects. Shyne’s deep-rooted vision is one that grips you eternally.

Seed screenings on November 8 and 10.

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House

A Chicago-specific story, Elegance Bratton’s “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” is a fun and wicked documentary that traces the origins of the liberating music genre to its breezy urban roots. It recalls Chicago’s place in music history through the eyes of Vince Lawrence, a legend of the genre, from the destructive night of Disco Demolition in Comiskey Park to the halcyon days of the Warehouse. Additionally, the film shows how house music filled the void left by disco for many black and queer people. And although the film’s beginning is light-hearted, especially when the talking heads share their fondest memories, it quickly turns prickly when it touches on the subject of Trax Records founder Larry Sherman and the “queen of house music” Rachael Cain. That’s when the claws come out and the real tea spills over the diverse origins of this genre that makes the ground vibrate.

Move Ya Body: The Birth of House will be screened on November 9 and 14.

Will

A few years ago, I recognized very little about “Willa” by Jessie Maples. The film, released in 1981, is often considered one of the first independent feature films directed by a black American woman. Filmed on location in Harlem on a budget of $12,000, the film stars Obaka Adedunyo as the titular women’s basketball coach and Loretta Devine, in her first film role, as his wife. Robert Dean also plays Brother, a 12-year-old child mentored by Will. “Twice as Nice” (1989) is the only other feature film Maple directed during his lifetime, and before this recent 4K restoration from Janus Films, “Will” was mostly unavailable. So I strongly suggest you take advantage of something that was rare until now.

Will be screened on November 8 and 12.

Tickets for the Black Harvest Film Festival can be purchased here.