Celebrate Juneteenth with Tribeca Festival

by Leslie Fields-Cruz

Growing up in New York City and Los Angeles — in a family of migrants from Ohio and South Carolina — my family never celebrated Juneteenth. Honestly, I don’t think I’d even heard of the holiday until I was in college. That won’t be the case for today’s young families, now that the occasion is a Federal holiday. For those of us in the documentary film community, the Tribeca Festival is offering new ways to observe the occasion. For the second consecutive year, the festival, which runs now through Sun., June 19, features a Juneteenth program of films and other events, several of which are available online.

Among this year’s documentary selections are four films that BPM played a role in bringing to fruition:

• Hazing, by Byron Hurt, takes a critical look at the timeworn and often dangerous tradition of hazing within sports, fraternal organizations and other settings.
• The Big Payback, by Ericka Alexander and Whitney Dow, offers a contemporary perspective on the hot topic of reparations for one of America’s original sins: the enslavement of kidnapped Africans. Go here for tickets to a free screening at the legendary Apollo Theatre on Sun., June 19, at 6 p.m. ET.
• After Sherman, by Jon Sesrie-Goff, is a story about inheritance and the tension that defines our collective American history. It explores coastal South Carolina as a site of pride and racial trauma through Gullah cultural retention and land preservation.
• Inner Wound Real, by Carrie Hawks, relays the story of three BIPOC folks who self-injure, then find new ways to cope.

Tribeca’s Juneteenth events also include a conversation on Wed., June 15 between New York Times columnist/MSNBC political analyst Charles Blow and Oscar, Emmy and Grammy-Award winning artist/author/actor/activist Common, who is this year’s recipient of the festival’s Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice award.

Go here for a closer look at the festival’s rich array of Juneteenth talks, shorts, TV broadcasts, immersive exhibitions, outdoor concerts, and screenings; and go here for tickets.

Looking to next week, if you’re a media maker who could benefit from updating and refining your business strategies, consider joining New York Women in Film and Television for the NYWIFT 2022 Finance Institute June 22–24. The three-part series offers fresh insights from some of today’s leading experts in the industry.

Have great week and Happy Juneteenth!

— Fields-Cruz is the executive director of Black Public Media