The 5th Annual Black Film Festival at Bay Street Theater

Bay Street Theater will host the fifth annual Black Film Festival on Sunday, October 6, at 3 p.m., an event that celebrates diversity and explores the rich tapestry of African American stories through the medium of film.

Presented by the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center in partnership with Bay Street Theater, Black Public Media, JoLa Films Inc., Suffolk County-Office of Minorities and The Witness Project, the festival comprises four short films, a short discussion after each film and a mid-screening reception. The annual festival is a showcase of short films celebrating Black voices and stories. This event is a unique opportunity to experience a diverse selection of films created by talented Black filmmakers.

“Our Black Film Festival is an extension of our ‘Thinking Forward Lecture Series, Equality Matters in the Hamptons.’ With our talks and films, the center aims to start and continue important conversations about race,” explained Bonnie Michelle Cannon, the center’s executive director. “The more we learn, the better we can understand each other. This brings us together. Hope and love are our guiding forces.”

“Bay Street Theater is thrilled to, once again, partner with Bonnie Cannon and the BHCCRC to support the Black Film Festival and bring these important films to our community at large,” added Tracy Mitchell, Bay Street’s executive director.

The short films are:

“Blue Print for My People,” directed by Carol Bash, founder and president of Paradox Films and an award-winning documentary filmmaker with over 20 years of experience. Her film is a visual poem that interweaves spoken word narration of Margaret Walker’s poem, “For My People” with contemporary images and rare 19th-century cyanotypes.

“Freedom Hill,” directed and produced by Resita Cox. Princeville, North Carolina, is the first town incorporated by freed, enslaved Africans in America. But this historically significant town sits on a precipice — swampy land along the Tar River in North Carolina — and is gradually being washed away. In the 1800s, this land was deemed uninhabitable by white people and after the Civil War, was left available for freed Africans to settle. Before its incorporation, residents called it “Freedom Hill,” gradually establishing a self-sufficient town. This documentary explores the environmental racism that is washing away the town of 2,000 through the lens of Marquetta Dickens, a Princeville native who recently moved back to help save her hometown and whose grandmother cast the historic vote in 1999 as mayor against the federal and state government’s recommendation to simply move the town elsewhere.

“For the Moon,” directed and written by Nile Price, a coming-of-age narrative based on the true story of Ronald McNair, the second African American to go to space following his stand against segregation in an all-white library.

“Descended From the Promised Land: The Legacy of Black Wall Street,” directed by Nailah Jefferson. If the Tulsa Race Massacre had never happened, would Black Wall Street have influenced the entire nation? The film is an intimate look at the lingering economic, psychological, and emotional impacts through the lens of several family descendants.

Tickets for the 5th Annual Black Film Festival are $13 ($5 children and students) at baystreet.org. Bay Street Theater is on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor.