Sweet Summer!
The BPM family is hot, hot, hot!
by Leslie Fields-Cruz
I spent the last weekend in July at a family reunion in Washington, D.C. Watching four generations of my relatives interact with each other — smiling, laughing and celebrating our accomplishments, while also crying and hugging each other as we acknowledged those we’ve lost in recent years — was such an enriching experience.
Black people are too often maligned and dismissed by others. So it is really important for us to gather periodically to affirm each other and acknowledge just how truly extraordinary we are.
In recent weeks, we’ve seen four BPM-affiliated projects win Emmy nominations: When Claude Got Shot (Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking), The Neutral Ground (Outstanding Historical Documentary), Un(re)solved (Outstanding Interactive Media: Innovation), and Changing Same (Outstanding Interactive Media: Innovation). We’ve also seen one of our BPM grantees, William Caballero, win the Jury Prize in this year’s PBS Short Film Festival, one of our BPMplus fellows, Fabiano Mixo, has been selected among the inaugural recipients of the Sundance Institute’s new Latine Collab Scholarship, and several BPM-funded projects are prominently featured in this month’s BlackStar Film Festival.
Family, my point here is: we’ve got a lot to celebrate! Our Founding Director Mable Haddock would be so proud. Let’s enjoy the rest of this sweet summer and continue shining, this fall and beyond.
— Fields-Cruz is the executive director of Black Public Media
