Melanated Movie Night Film Festival

We are excited to invite you to join us as we launch the inaugural Melanated Movie Night Film Festival, an initiative created to celebrate and amplify black voices and black stories in film. Our festival is meant to center the talent, experiences, and perspective of black filmmakers.

From Oscar Micheaux to Julie Dash, from Nia DaCosta to Ryan Coogler, Black cinema has been shaped by the manifestations of Black genius. Visionaries with a desire to put into the world a point of view that is often excluded from the cinematic landscape. Black filmmakers have time and time again created masterpieces that ultimately become fixtures in the culture as must-see classics. Robert Towsend gave us Meteor Man. Mario Van Peebles gave us New Jack City. Kassi Lemmons gave us Eve’s Bayou and the list goes on. Even when the name of the filmmaker escapes the mind, the work lives on indelibly.

In a climate where the past and present of the Black experience is under the active threat of erasure, it is the art by black creatives that will reflect our times and be the catalyst for the resistance that black resilience has always been. Black filmmakers will be on the frontline and the Melanated Movie Night Film Festival wants to platform as many of them as we can.

Join us as we celebrate black storytellers and black films, honoring the experience that shapes the culture and the creators who tell the story.

For any filmmakers interested in submitting to the Melanated Movie Night Film Festival, click here.

Awards and Prizes

Best Feature Film

Best Short Film

Best Student Film

Walter Goodwin Jr. Leap Award

Presented by My Ambitions As A Writer