Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College JustArt Spring 2025 Series in collaboration with BlackStar Projects Presents:
BlackStar Selects
Shorts from Philadelphia’s Annual Festival of Films from the Global Majority
Featuring Philadelphia Filmmaker Kristal Sotomayor’s Timely Finding Sanctuary
Through a blend of documentary, speculative fiction, and poetic storytelling, the films in this program explore the spaces—both tangible and spiritual—that our communities forge in resistance to systemic oppression. From roller rinks and basketball courts to dreams, community organizing and transformative awakenings, each film reveals the ways in which people reclaim their place, defy erasure, and envision new routes for emancipation.
Swarthmore will showcase these highlights from the most recent festival:
The People Could Fly (Imani Dennison, documentary, 21 min.)
The People Could Fly is a poetic documentary about the history of Black gathering spaces in Louisville, Kentucky, from the 1960s to mid 2000s. In this intimate video portrait, we delve into the ritual of roller skating and how roller rinks emerged as sanctuaries for Black culture. Through a charged combination of archival footage, still photos, newly shot material and newsreel footage, we explore the history of a segregated Louisville and the magic that its Black community has conjured as an act of resistance.
Albina Dream Survey (Spencer Garland, animation, 3 min.)
A mystical being receives the dreams of Black children via a mysterious phone number. The Dream Collector, the dashing “Honk-Shoo Hero,” does what he can to protect them from the forces that seek to destroy them.
Bring Your Name: The Sean Bell All-Stars ( Raafi Rivero, documentary, 8 min.)
This film profiles Rah Wiggins, coach of New York City’s most prolific street basketball team, the Sean Bell All-Stars, who’ve dominated the summer tournament scene for more than 20 years. After the NYPD’s infamous killing of Sean Bell in 2006, Coach Wiggins renamed the team after his fallen friend. In this short documentary, Coach Wiggins visits his former neighborhood in Queens, where his friendship with Sean Bell once blossomed. We also get a coach’s view inside a tournament game at Gersh Park in Brooklyn.
The Dawn (Alicia Mendy, Senegal, fiction, 29 min.)
After a parasite contaminated all drinking water resources in Dakar, a private
pharmaceutical company developed pills to neutralize it. A young man who can no longer get his pills is directly exposed to the symptoms of the parasite: Madness and dementia. In the following days he struggles with himself. He resists taking pills and drinking water and slowly realizes that he has never been so lucid. He is supported and challenged, by Minuit – and Aurore, who can move between the now and the spiritual world, catalyzing Alioune’s political and spiritual awakening.
Expanding Sanctuary (Kristal Sotomayor, documentary, 21 min.)
Immigrant mother Linda Hernandez emerges as a community leader during the historic campaign to end the sharing of the Philadelphia police database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Six years in the making, Expanding Sanctuary tells a rarely told story about a Latinx immigrant community’s successful journey to change legislation and protect families. Sotomayor received the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award for their film at this year’s edition of the festival.
Q&A with Philadelphia filmmaker and TriCo Film Festival Director Kristal Sotomayor after the screening.
Next up in the Aydelotte JustArt Series: filmmaker Milisuthando Bongela with her award-winning experimental documentary Milisuthando (2023), co-sponsored by Gender and Sexuality Studies, Black Studies, Film and Media Studies and the Cooper Serendipity Fund.
February 26 at 7PM, in LPAC Cinema, Swarthmore College.
The series launched February 17 with filmmaker Lina Soualem and her acclaimed documentary about four generations of Palestinian women in her family, Bye Bye Tiberians (2023),
Events in the series received cosponsorship from Black Studies, Clark Fund for Gender Discourses, Cooper Serendipity Fund, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Film and Media Studies. All events are free and open to the public.
