Ifeyinwa Arinze, Kima Hibbert, Johanna Makabi, Joshua C. Okwuosa, and Tariq Tarey in person for Q&A

A shorts program examining the unique and expressive ways individuals throughout the African diaspora respond to obstacles and desires.

Okem
Joshua Okwuosa, 2022, Nigeria/USA, 15m
English and Igbo with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Okem, a Nigerian immigrant, is faced with his worst nightmare when he receives a call from home.

August Visitor
Ifeyinwa Arinze, 2022, USA, 11m
New York Premiere
When her widowed mother has a male friend over for dinner, an observant Nigerian-American teenager acts out, which leads her to a deeper perception of her mother.

Africans with Mainframes
Kima Hibbert, 2023, USA, 15m
New York Premiere
Africans with Mainframes is a short mockumentary following LaJoye Watkins, a reclusive Black woman living in Brooklyn. She is determined to tell a secret she has harbored all her life: electronic music was actually started by Black Southerners in the 1920s. Exploring themes of loneliness, revenge, and reclamation, Watkins takes us on a historical tour de force and a journey toward a spiritual awakening of her own.

Silsilad
Tariq Tarey, 2023, USA, 12m
New York Premiere
The story of three Somali-American artists, founders of the Minneapolis-based artists’ collective Soomaal House of Art, and the challenges they face running a community-based gallery for BIPOC artists and organizations. Including reflections by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Mother’s Tongue
Wilmos Paul, 2022, USA, 16m
English and French with English subtitles
Junior, an African immigrant teenager ashamed of his accent, enrolls in a creative writing club thinking he can make it through the semester without speaking… and then is confronted  with his worst fear.

A Laundry Day
Johanna Makabi, 2022, USA/France, 3m
World Premiere
Today, Fatou goes to the laundromat in Harlem and meets a young man.

Grace
Johanna Makabi, 2022, France, 14m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Eight-year-old Grace hates her neighborhood, and she hates cheerleading. One day, she decides to join her father in space.

This screening of Shorts Program 1: Call and Response is co-presented by Be Reel Black Cinema Club.

  Closed captions and audio descriptions are available for the film, Silsilad, with our capti-view devices.

Open captions are available for the film, August Visitor.