PitchBLACK Recap | Artist Chat on Twitter Spaces this Thursday

by Leslie Fields-Cruz

As you might imagine, after last week’s spectacular PitchBLACK Forum & Awards program, my staff and I are wrapping up and recovering this week. Which is why our May newsletter will publish next Tuesday (5/9), not this week.

PitchBLACK Film Forum participants (left photo, l-r): Leslie Fields-Cruz, Resita Cox, Ashley O’Shay, Soraya Sèléne, Qiona Woffard, Marta Effinger-Crichlow, Luchina Fisher, Shan Shan Tam, Dawn Langford, Sandy Rattley, and Denise Greene. PitchBLACK Immersive Forum participants (right photo, standing row, l-r): Lisa Osborne, Tameka Kee, Damien McDuffie, Dominick Rabrun, Kidus Hailesilassie, and Leslie Fields-Cruz; (bottom row, l-r): Aja Evans, Kacie Willis, Ainslee Robson, and LaJuné McMillian. Photos by Isaiah Horton.

Thanks to all who were able to attend PitchBLACK, whether in person or virtually. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Congratulations again to our forum competitors and to our award winners: Yoruba Richen, BPM Trailblazer Award; Film Forum winner Hiding in Plain Sight (Luchina Fisher, director/ Shan Shan Tam, producer); Immersive Forum winners: The Unseen (LaJuné McMillian, creator) and Uncharted VR (Kidus Hailesilassie and Ainslee Robson, co-creators); and Georgiana Wright, the 2023 Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellow. If you missed PitchBLACK, feel free to watch the recordings on our YouTube Channel. And there’s still time to catch all five films featured in our Yoruba Richen Retrospective. Go here to get access. The retrospective ends next Monday (5/8).

This week, AfroPoP XV is premiering Alain Gomis’ critically acclaimed documentary Rewind and Play about an unsettling episode in the life and career of jazz legend Thelonious Monk on WORLD. The film is streaming on BPM’s YouTube channel, WORLD and PBS.org.

Finally, at noon this Thursday (5/4), visit us on Twitter Spaces for a lunchtime Artist Chat with past contributors to our AfroPop series. Regi Allen, Sabrina Gordon, Thomas Allen Harris, and Michèle Stephenson will join me to reflect on 15 seasons of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. You’re invited to share thoughts about what AfroPoP has meant for public television audiences and for the makers whose films it features. This Twitter Spaces event is part of our celebratory tribute to the ground-breaking documentary film series. I look forward to connecting with you then.

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