March 6, 2025 | 7 pm | Tickets: $16 ($8.50 for BAM & AV Members)

Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn

In honor of Women’s History Month, BAM and Reel Sisters will screen Oscar qualifying and curated shorts from Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series. The evening will feature four Oscar qualifying shorts and one notable best screenplay film by women of color including Reunion and Ro & the Stardust (Netflix). Family bonds, faith, joy and pride are mixed with painful truths in the Oscar worthy stories presented in our showcase. The event will kick off with Eboni Price’s Blaque, an experimental short lionizing poet Nikki Giovanni’s iconic poem “Ego Trippin’.”

Reunion, directed by Brooklyn based filmmakers Zainab and Tim Naylor, is a powerful short on forgiveness and letting go. In the film, a West African immigrant is triggered by a bestselling author and child soldier.

Founded in 1997 by African Voices magazine, Reel Sisters, the first Oscar qualifying film festival in the nation devoted to women of color, has showcased 10,000+ films by women of African, Asian, Native American, Indian, Latina and Arabic descent. Reel Sisters will be held in Brooklyn on Oct. 25-26, 2025. For information visit www.reelsisters.org.

 

A Dedication to Nikki Giovanni

Blaque

Director: Eboni Price

Producer: Kristofer Cross, Narlyia Sterling, Angelica Lee, Eboni Price

8:25 min., Experimental

Set to Nikki Giovanni’s “Ego Trippin”, Blaque is a visual essay highlighting the complexities of Black womanhood in America through a look at the stereotypes, experiences, and perceptions that often navigate how they are received by others and themselves. 

Reel Sisters Oscar Qualifying & Curated Shorts

Ro & the Stardust

Reel Sisters Best Short Narrative Award 2022 | Oscar Qualifier 2023

Director/Writer: Eunice Levis

Producer:  Rachel K. Ofori, Elvis Nolasco

Narrative Short, 15 min.

A free-spirited teen fulfills her terminally ill grandmother’s dying wish of building a rocket ship to launch her into outer space.

A Trip with Mom

Reel Sisters Best Short Narrative Award 2020 | Oscar Qualifier 2021

Director/Writer: Sophie SHUI

Producer: TING, CHI-FANG

Narrative Short, 25 min.

In order to take care of his old mother (played by Liou, Yiin-Shang), who has lost her intelligence and is disabled, Xia Changming (played by Yi-Wen CHEN) remains unemployed at home. The family of four has been relying on his wife Xiaoling (played by CHIN, TZU-YEN), an insurance salesperson, for many years.

Ya Hanouni

Reel Sisters Best Short Screenplay Award 2024 | Curator’s Pick

Directors/Writers: Lyna Tadount, Sofian Chouaib

Narrative Short, 2:38 min.

While the Mom and the Dad try to put their baby to sleep, a competition arises between them: who will manage to get the baby to say the first word?

Reunion

Reel Sisters Best Short Narrative Award 2023 | Oscar Qualifier 2025

Directors/Writers: Timothy S Naylor, Zainab Jah

Producers: Djaka Souaré, Timothy S Naylor, Zainab Jah

Executive Producer: Danai Gurira      Associate Producer: Lupita Nyong’o

Narrative, 15 min.

Isata, a West African immigrant living in the Bronx, while watching a morning talk show recognizes the guest, bestselling author, Mamadou Kargbo. He triggers in her deep memories of surviving a civil war. She wonders, was he once the child soldier who destroyed her family? Setting out to find him, if she is right – will she seek vengeance or grant forgiveness?

Jellyfish & Lobster

Reel Sisters Best Short Narrative Award 2024 | Oscar Qualifier 2026

Director/Writer: Yasmin Afifi

Producer: Elizabeth Rufait

Narrative Short, 20 min.

A magical realist, dark comedy/drama set within the backdrop of a gritty British care home.

When two old and terminally ill patients discover a magical pool that restores them back to their younger selves beneath the water, they are forced to reconcile with the inescapable truth of their mortality, or drown in the illusion of their past.