Seattle Black Film Festival starts this week with twice as many films as last year

Back in its usual April date (after pivoting to July during last year’s pandemic flurry of rescheduling), the Seattle Black Film Festival is once again an all-digital event. Now in its 18^th year, the SBFF — formerly called the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival — will run April 16-26. It will include twice as many films as last year, with more than 70 feature-length films and shorts. A quarter of the films are from outside the U.S.; countries represented include Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Canada, French Guiana, Brazil, Ghana and the United Kingdom.

And the format is a little different this year, with the festival’s 10 days featuring on-demand programming grouped into four themes: “A Diaspora in Displacement,” “Decolonizing the Narrative in Our #OwnVoices,” “The Future of Our Identity” (youth-focused films) and “Black Love, Self Love.” Opening night will be a celebration of local Black voices from the arts community, hosted by Sharon Williams, executive director of the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas. The festival’s second weekend, April 23-25, will feature special streamed events in conjunction with some of these themes, with each including a screening and a live panel discussion.

Among the feature-length films on tap: the documentaries “Before Things Fell Apart,” in which griots (traditional storytellers/historians/musicians) tell the history of Western Sudan; “In My Skin,” about structural racism in Brazil; “Ophir,” which examines the revolution in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea; and the romantic drama “Love Like Winter.” The festival will offer a wide assortment of short films, including several by Pacific Northwest filmmakers: “Bazzooka” (Danny Denial), “Aje Ijo Series (4^th installment finale): Immortal” (Kiana Davis); “Such an Honor” (Nicole Pouchet) and “Depression: Antidote” (Catherine Harris-White).