Black on Screen: Black Feminist Shorts

"Black Feminist Shorts" is presented in partnership with Firelight Media, an organization that supports the creation, distribution, and impact of documentary media by and about communities of color.

This program gathers contemporary filmmakers whose work experiments with Black feminisms and queer world building across generations and geographies. Featuring films by Michèle Stephenson, Rraine Hanson, Sira Marissa Lewis, Raven Irabor, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Twiggy Pucci Garçon, and Ja'Tovia Gary, the screening celebrates radical storytelling grounded in spiritual embodiment, community gathering, and play. Together, these shorts offer tender portraits of Black feminist and queer worlds in motion. Following the films, join us for a talkback with the filmmakers.

2:05PM

BLACK GIRLS PLAY: THE STORY OF HAND GAMES, directed by Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster, 18min, 2023

The joyful hand games played by Black girls from generation to generation.

2:23PM

THE DIVINE FEMMUNITY, directed by Rraine Hanson, 11 min, 2019
A young Jamaican girl discovers the origins of her community, a collective of human trafficking victims who found refuge in near future Kingston through divine intervention.
2:34PM
SHE ISLAND, directed by Raven Irabor & Sira Marissa Lewis 16 min, 2025
In the heart of the Caribbean, a mother and daughter confront a malevolent curse erasing identities of all the island's women, propelling them on a daring quest to reclaim their rich cultural heritage and triumph over the encroaching darkness.
2:50PM
MINOR DEMONS, directed by Kearra Amaya Gopee, 23 min, 2026
An artist's obsession with a legal document concerning their father has a variety of consequences.

3:05PM
MnM, directed by Twiggy Pucci Garcon, 15 min, 2025

MnM is an exuberant portrait of chosen sisters Mermaid and Milan, two emerging runway divas in the drag ballroom community. Celebrating their joy, siblinghood, and unapologetic personas, the film explores the power and beauty of being nonbinary in a community that prizes gender ‘realness’.
3:31PM
QUIET AS IT'S KEPT, directed by Ja'Tovia Gary, 26 min, 2023
Using Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, Ja'Tovia Gary expands on the book's themes in a contemporary reflection on the desirability of whiteness, the solidarity of black women, and the value of producing work on one's own terms.

Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

Black on Screen: A Century of Radical Visual Culture, captures 100 years of local and transnational Black movement work and artistic evolution on film. Sourced from The Schomburg’s collection and others, it takes a kaleidoscopic look at Black life and expression across diasporas, rendering a range of storytelling traditions that incite and inspire Black world-building. The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) at the Schomburg Center collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.

supports the creation, distribution, and impact of documentary media by and about communities of color. By providing filmmakers mentorship, funding, and creative development, they seek to advance the art of nonfiction storytelling to realize a more just and beautiful world.

This year, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture continues celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! Join us all year long for a wide array of special events, exhibitions, and more as we celebrate this milestone and continue the legacy of Arturo Schomburg.

Schomburg100 | Exhibition | Special-Edition Library Card | Become a Member

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FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED Events are free and open to all, but due to space constraints registration is requested. Registered guests are given priority check-in 15 to 30 minutes before start time. After the event starts all registered seats are released regardless of registration, so we recommend that you arrive early. We generally overbook to ensure a full house.

GUESTS Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

ACCESSIBLILITY Accessibility requests can be made by e-mail [email protected].

E-TRANSPORTATION NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at [email protected].

Please note that personal and professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

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Host or Publisher Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture