Equity & Transformation (EAT) Film Festival - 2026

Dive into fresh voices and bold stories at the Equity & Transformation Film Festival 2026—see you there!
About this Event

Equity & Transformation Launches Inaugural Film Festival to Harness Cinema for Reparations Awareness and Education

Five films, five UN reparations pillars: a Chicago nonprofit is pairing cinema with community engagement and awareness to build momentum for House Bill 4443 and the Illinois Future Fund.

As Illinois lawmakers prepare for the upcoming legislative veto session in November and December, Equity & Transformation (EAT) today announced its inaugural Equity & Transformation Film Festival at the historic Harper Theater in Chicago on September 19, 2026. Moving beyond traditional cultural retrospectives, this pilot film festival functions as community power building and public education designed to advance House Bill 4443 (HB 4443) and build momentum for the statewide Illinois Future Fund campaign.

While national debates over reparations frequently stall in theoretical discourse, Illinois has already demonstrated proven blueprints for reparative justice through Evanston’s landmark reparations initiative and the Chicago Future Fund guaranteed income program. The EAT Film Festival anchors these real-world achievements in a rigorous international framework: each of the five featured films directly corresponds to one of the United Nations’ five recognized pillars of reparations; Restitution, Compensation, Rehabilitation, Satisfaction, and Guarantees of Non-Repetition.

Cinematic Program

The 5-hour program pairs each film with an interactive, 10–15 minute Q&A session featuring visiting and local filmmakers, creating a direct dialogue on guaranteed income, abolitionist frameworks, and systemic transformation:

1. A Fight for Time (Dir. E. Micheaux | 17 min)Follows Mickey, a 17-year-old Black youth from Washington, D.C., through the juvenile justice system, tracing how trauma, poverty, and a lack of opportunity converged to shape his fate during the height of the War on Drugs. The film centers his mother, Theresa, a recovering addict fighting to hold her family together under a system built to fail them both.
2. The Restore Fellowship Cohort 2025 (Dir. Christian Uche & Shanell Oliver | 18 min)The powerful follow-up to EAT's award-winning documentary work, expanding its scope beyond Chicago to include fellows from across the United States. Standing on the historic grounds of the transatlantic slave trade, meeting with local leaders and the sitting Woman King, visiting sacred forests, and witnessing the resilience of local informal economies, the fellows navigate a deeply emotional roller coaster of connection and healing.
3. We Call Each Other (Dir. Sarah Oberholtzer | 14 min)A scripted, anthology-format short film series exploring how a community builds relationships that dissolve reliance on prisons and police. The narrative follows characters working through instances of harm and crisis using restorative, love-based approaches rather than calling the state.
4. The Big Payback (Dir. Erika Alexander & Whitney Dow | 88 min)Follows rookie Evanston alderwoman Robin Rue Simmons as she leads the passage of the first tax-funded reparations bill for Black Americans in 2019, while widening its scope to the national fight over H.R. 40.
5. The Restore Fellowship Documentary (Dir. Ken Williams Jr. | 58 min)Follows five system-impacted individuals from Chicago on a transformative journey to Benin, West Africa. The documentary explores what true restitution looks like through the lens of the transatlantic slave trade, intergenerational trauma, and pathways to collective healing

Event Logistics & Attendance Details

• Date & Time: September 19th, 2026 | Opens after 4:00 PM (5-Hour Total Runtime)
• Location: Harper Theater, 5238 S Harper Ave, Chicago, IL
• Featured Guests: Filmmakers Erika Alexander (pending confirmation), E. Micheaux, Ken Williams Jr., Sarah Oberholtzer, Shanell Oliver, community leaders, and invited state legislators and MORE.

About Equity & Transformation (EAT)

Equity and Transformation (EAT) is a non-profit, community-led organization founded by and for post-incarcerated people. EAT was established in 2018 with the mission to uplift the voices and power of system-impacted Chicagoans engaged in the informal economy: the diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, jobs, and workers that are not regulated or protected by the state. We have continuously witnessed system-impacted individuals face significant barriers in their everyday lives; they are shut out of the workforce, forced into informality, and criminalized for surviving. These systemic inequalities often lead to extreme poverty and additional periods of incarceration. EAT is committed to building social and economic equity for informal workers and dismantling systemic racism.