We are showing two shows - Episodes 5 and 6, both produced by Niema Jordan.

Episode 5 - We Don’t See Color (1996-2013)

Academics and organizers explore the complexities of affirmative action and how

Changing demographics have affected school desegregation.

Episode 6 - What Comes After Hope? (2008-2015)

The years of America’s first Black president mark both a rise in police brutality and the emergence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Show less

A night of Afrofuturist short stories, short films, comedy, and a table read.

We invite you to a night of Afrofuturisit stories read aloud, Afrofuturism in education, and a card game feturing powerful deities! That's not all though, there's also two short films, stand up comedy, and to top the evening off, a table reading of an upcoming short film involving a Black family of magicians defending their legacy agaisnt a hacker out to destroy it!

Lorraine Hansberry, writer/director of A Raisin in the Sun, had a complex life; see more in the 1st documentary exploring it.

Black Film Unscreened & Unstreamed, Lorraine Hansberry, Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart

On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway and changed the face of American theater forever. As the first-ever black woman to author a play performed on Broadway, she did not shy away from richly drawn characters and unprecedented subject matter. The play attracted record crowds and earned the coveted top prize from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. While the play is seen as a groundbreaking work of art, the timely story of Hansberry’s life is far less known.

The documentary Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart is the first in-depth presentation of Hansberry’s complex life, using her personal papers and archives, including home movies and rare photos, as source material. The film explores the influences that shaped Hansberry’s childhood, future art, and activism. Filmmaker and Peabody Award-winner Tracy Heather Strain (Unnatural Causes, I’ll Make Me a World, American Experience: Building the Alaska Highway) crafts the story of one woman who, like many of her generation, believed that words could change society. Family, friends and colleagues, including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Harry Belafonte, her sister Mamie Hansberry, Lloyd Richards, Amiri Baraka and Louis Gossett, Jr., share their personal memories of Hansberry, offering an intimate look at a woman who was, as Poitier says in the film, “reaching into the essence of who we were, who we are, and where we came from.”

Join us for an evening exploring the opioid crisis through filmmaker Joanna Rudnick's powerful personal lens .

We will screen two short films from the Independent Lens PBS series The Opioid Trilogy, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Joanna Rudnick, who approaches the subject both as a documentarian and as a sister to someone who struggled with opioid use disorder. Joanna will share her journey to understand the “demand side” of drug use and the complex emotional realities facing families, while working to avoid the voyeuristic tropes that too often shape addiction narratives.

In conversation, she will discuss how creative devices such as animation can humanize experiences frequently marked by stigma, judgment, and othering, and how storytelling can help shift the narrative toward compassion, dignity, and healing.

Moderated by Marcia Jarmel, Director, Filmmaker Services, JEWISH FILM INSTITUTE

Manny’s never turns away anyone for lack of funds. If you need a free ticket, just email "grapefruit" along with the event title to events@welcometomannys.com

Want to support community members? By purchasing a "Pay It Forward" ticket you will allow us to provide free tickets to those who may not be able to afford entry otherwise and ensure we can create a diverse socio-economic audience that represents San Francisco.

Two filmmaking friends and partners travel South to explore what reparations mean to them. Selina is Black, and Macky is white.

Black Film Unscreened & Unstreamed, Acts of Reparation

From kitchen tables to porches, lost cemeteries to discovered diaries, their journeys lead to unexpected opportunities that transform their friendship, families, and communities. In Monore, Louisiana, Selina gathers stories from a sisterhood of her great aunties who together sleuth to uncover the buried tales of their ancestors. In Penfield, Georgia, Macky challenges generations of his kin to dismantle the privilege they inherited from enslavers and support Black leaders nearby. In Acts of Reparation, we see every day Americans become the change they want to see in the world.

What is it to resist?… to persist in opposition to those in power?

Short Summary: 29 minutes

What is it to resist?… to persist in opposition to those in power? POST ATLANTIC explores the visionary world of legendary African American painter and philosopher Dewey Crumpler as he connects the slave trade to modern globalization and demonstrates what it means to be a working artist with a conscience in today’s society.

Filmmaker Bios:

Producer/Director Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman’s films include the award-winning "Town Destroyer,“ "Company Town,” “Between Two Worlds,” “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley”, and “Blacks and Jews.” Their films have been broadcast on public television and at festivals around the world, and have been used by schools, clergy, policy makers, community groups and activists.

More info at our website: www.snitow-kaufman.org

A single Bay Area mom, pregnant with her 3rd child, fights to reclaim her family. 2023 debut feature from filmmaker Savana.

Gia (Tia Nomore) is a pregnant woman fighting for custody of her two children in the foster care system. As she treks through each day, trying to tick all the boxes on the “fit mother” checklist, she fights not only the system itself but also her struggles and the ideals set by the culture she lives in. Not only do her born children hang in the balance, but the future of her unborn child, due any day, is up in the air.

View trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA-Jhu938vY

BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez offers unprecedented access to the life, work & mesmerizing performances of renowned poet and activist Sonia Sanchez.

BaddDDD SONIA SANCHEZ (Directors: Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, 2015, 91 minutes). It offers unprecedented access to the life, work, and mesmerizing performances of renowned poet and activist Sonia Sanchez, who describes herself as "a woman with razor blades between my teeth." It offers unprecedented access to the life, work, and mesmerizing performances of renowned poet and activist Sonia Sanchez, who describes herself as "a woman with razor blades between my teeth."

A leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and inspiration to today's hip hop spoken word artists, Sanchez for over 60 years has helped to redefine American culture and politics as an activist in the Black, women's and peace movements.

Based in the Philadelphia area, Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater have been making award-winning broadcast documentaries for more than 30 years. Their films often focus on social justice issues affecting women and girls. Sabrina Schmidt Gordon has been editing and producing high-impact documentaries for more than 20 years. She works and resides in New York City. A leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and an inspiration to today's hip-hop spoken-word artists, Sanchez has, for over 60 years, helped redefine American culture and politics as an activist in the Black, women's, and peace movements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7cP6g6VBAY

The Lake Merritt Monster, a local short film, and NOSEEUMS feature film, when Ember’s weekend getaway descends into a spectral nightmare.

The Lake Merritt Monster, Ben Mulhound, 16:16 short, TALK BACK at the end of screenings.

Ollie Henderson is celebrating his birthday with his mom, Rebecca, when, on their way home, they are attacked by something in the darkness. Ollie screams for help, trying to hold on to his Mom, but she is ripped from his arms and dragged into Lake Merritt. Ollie’s dad, Baldemar, an Oakland Police Officer, arrives on the scene. He searches the area for answers, but a visibly shaken Ollie can only utter one word - “Monster.”

 Three years later, and the scene still haunts Ollie’s nightmares. He feels his mother’s disappearance is his fault, and is filled with shame that he did not fight to protect her. Determined to make things right, Ollie is constantly searching for his mother and for clues that might lead him to the mythical Lake Merritt Monster. Along with his friends Ham, App, and Heiro, Ollie devises a plan to find and kill the beast, not realizing the cost to his friends and family. It’s only with a little help from a monster-hunting Granny that Ollie learns his family’s own legacy with monsters - one that his mother was hoping to pass down to him. Armed with renewed strength, ingenuity, and the knowledge of his own role as a next-generation monster hunter, Ollie sets off on one last mission to defeat the Monster and find his mother.  TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/917235477?share=copy

NOSEEUMS, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT, Raven DeShay Carter, feature

When Jason-Michael approached me with this fresh story concept, the story immediately

compelled me. Originally titled Biting Midges, I loved the themes of property, ancestral

ties, and female rage. Little did I know we’d be pitching the concept to Torchlight Studios

a few weeks later. And little did I know, my mind would go into overdrive in the pitching

room as I frantically stated why our story concept was the best one for Torchlight to invest

in.

An independent Ember (20s) studies in a library with Jasmine, her exuberant best friend.Ember’s womanizing ex-boyfriend, Paul, appears suddenly. Tessa, Ember’s edgy, Asian-American roommate arrives, intersecting the awkward situation with a weekend trip they’ve planned with Tessa’s two other white “friends. " Jasmine’s skeptical, reminding Ember just how horrible Tessa’s stuck-up peers are. Eager to decompress, Ember ditches Jasmine anyway for what she imagines will be a fun weekend.

Raoul Peck collaborates with the Orwell Estate to form a portrait of George Orwell, the writer, using his own words.

George Orwell was one of the most radical and visionary authors of the 20th Century, whose 1940s novels, such as 1984 and Animal Farm, foretold a chilling, all-to-believable authoritarian future. Acclaimed director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), working in collaboration with the Orwell Estate, seamlessly interweaves historical clips, readings from Orwell's diary, cinematic references, and dynamic modern day footage to craft not only a definitive portrait of the writer himself, but an entirely fresh take on how remarkably relevant and prophetic his work has become. Peck, who has his own personal connection to the material--as an 8-year-old he was forced to flee the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti--doesn't just present the information but shows new ways of seeing it, drawing patterns and connections we might not otherwise realize. As terms like "Big Brother" and "Newspeak" become more prevalent and ominous with each passing day, Orwell: 2+2=5, featuring award-winning actor Damian Lewis as the voice of Orwell, provides a stirring depiction of the dangers of power and the fragility of so-called civilized society, told through the eyes of a man from the past who just might hold the key to the world's future.