On Wed., Oct. 22, 2025 at 7 pm, Reel Sisters and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) will present a trailblazer award to Brooklyn filmmaker Samantha Knowles, director of Harlem Ice (Disney+), for her distinguishing career in documentary filmmaking. Her latest work includes directing an episode of “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water,” a highly acclaimed Netflix docuseries. The celebration will be held at BAM, 30 Lafayette Ave.
Tickets: $25 ($15 Discount Code: REELSIS2025)
Join us for a retrospective of Samantha’s work featuring episodes from Harlem Ice (Disney); Eyes on The Prizes III: We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest 1977-2015 (HBO); and The Coder, a short film about a rising young woman in the tech industry who built her ground-breaking Photo Patch app at age 16.
Yoruba Richen, a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker, will lead a dynamic conversation with Samantha on the power of the female lens in storytelling.
Enjoy an exciting evening of film, conversation and inspiration!
Samantha’s films are available on Disney, Netflix and HBO. Please watch her films online so we can have a full talk about her defining work.
Reel Sisters Trailblazer Honoree 2025
Samantha Knowles
Samantha Knowles is an award-winning director. She won a Cinema Eye Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Nonfiction Series for co-directing the HBO docuseries “Black and Missing” and her film, “How We Get Free”, was shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. She has also won a Television Academy Honors Award, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing, and a Gracie Award for Best Director of a National TV Program. In 2023 she was named to the DOCNYC 40 Under 40 List, which honors and celebrates emerging talent in the documentary world. Her work has screened as part of Hot Docs, DOC NYC, the Tribeca Film Festival, the New York Times Op-Doc series, on HBO, Showtime, and more. Most recently, she directed the series “Harlem Ice” for Disney+, an episode of the seminal series “Eyes on the Prize” for HBO, and an episode of in the docuseries “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water” for Netflix.
Sam’s first short film, “Why Do You Have Black Dolls?” was the recipient of Reel Sisters Spirit Award 2012.
Awards Presenter
Stacey L. Holman
Stacey L. Holman is a Harlem-based filmmaker who’s directed/produced several award-winning projects including episode three of the 2018 PBS series Reconstruction: America After the Civil War hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. She was a producer on the critically acclaimed documentary Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities and served as Associate Producer on the Emmy award-winning film Freedom Riders produced/directed by Stanley Nelson. Additionally, Stacey was Coordinating Producer for Nelson’s Peabody Award-winning documentary Freedom Summer, and she was Co-Producer on Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band.
Stacey’s short film Dressed Like Kings garnered the Tribeca Film Festival All-Access Award and aired on the WORLD Channel as part of the AfroPoP Shorts Program. She was the Series Producer/Director of Henry Louis Gates, Jr’s Black Church series The Black Church: This Is Our Story. Currently, she’s one of the producers/directors on Gates’ Making Black America: African American Social Networks airing on PBS in 2022. Stacey Holman is a 2022 Reel Sisters Trailblazer Award recipient.
Moderator
Yoruba Richen
Yoruba Richen is a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker who was awarded the Trailblazer award by Black Public Media. Her work has been featured on multiple outlets, including PBS, Netflix, MSNBC, Peacock and FX/Hulu. Her film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks won a Gracie Award and was honored by the Television Academy. Other recent work include the Emmy-nominated films American Reckoning, How It Feels to Be Free; The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show and Green Book: Guide to Freedom. Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor won an NAACP Image Award. Her films The New Black and Promised Land won multiple festival awards before airing on PBS’s Independent Lens and P.O.V. Yoruba’s other work include directing an episode of the award-winning series Black and Missing for HBO and High on the Hog for Netflix. She most recently directed The Fall of Diddy for ID and HBO Max. Yoruba is a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker’s Award. She is Founding Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Mistress of Ceremonies
Gha’il Rhodes Benjamin
Gha’il Rhodes Benjamin (Actress, Master Teaching Artist, Grammy nominated spoken-word performance artist) is a 2020 Audelco Award recipient, for the role of “Wilhemina” in SASSY MAMAS . In 2019 she was featured in the role of ‘Dynamite Texas Entrepreneur’ Poliina Graves in REUNION IN BARTERSVILLE;(also an Audelco winner) and was featured in the National Black Theatre Festival‘s 2019 Winston Salem, North Carolina celebration performance in that same role. Other credits include A Raisin in the Sun, Steal Away, We are your sisters, Bee-Luther Hatchee (NY premiere) and The Gift. Gha’il is the actor/spoken word artist in Al Santana’s film REPARATION BLUES (PBS), Mrs. Thang in the film SWEET THANG, and the Poetess in DARK SEED(films by China Colston).
Author and Motivational Speaker Les Brown says of Gha’il:
“She’s authentic; she’s talented, mesmerizing and a breath of fresh air. Gha’il’s talent with words is life transforming and mind expanding.” Gha’il ‘s writing is featured in African Voices Magazine’s spring 2020 issue (tribute to Ntozake Shange/Part II) with a poem titled “Tiddies aint everything/for Sara the Butterscotch Sunflower Queen,” which recognizes the tenacity of breast cancer survivors. Other highlights include performances on NYC Summer Stage, Community Unity Festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan, NYC Disability Unite Festival, Lincoln Center Outdoor Summer Series, Central Park Celebrates Juneteenth (2022) at Seneca Village, and most recently a customized poem written for Roberta Flack (performed as Ms. Flack received the Key to the City of New York by Mayor Eric Adams). www.ghailrhodesbenjamin.com