Historicist time travel. Thank you to our screening partner: <a href="https://1838blackmetropolis.com/" target="_blank">1838 Black Metropolis</a>.

In a forgotten corner of the city, an unassuming bodega serves as a gateway to ancestral wisdom. Patrons searching for everyday items receive something far greater — TEACHA brand products, unlocking visions of a world where Black people thrive beyond limitation. Blending afrosurrealism with the aesthetics of ’70s and ’80s urban culture and African and Caribbean spirituality, the Hood Botanica transforms the bodega into a portal of self-discovery. The silent store clerk, adorned with cowrie AirPods, serves as the quiet guide to transformation.

The Store

In a forgotten corner of the city, there exists a bodega like no other — a gateway to ancestral wisdom and untold possibilities. When patrons step inside looking for something ordinary, a veil between worlds reveals an alternate reality where Black people thrive.

A personal meditation on loss, family, home and reclamation through the artistic process of Adebunmi Gbadebo. Gbadebo creates works out of organic materials from the South Carolina plantation cemeteries where her formerly enslaved ancestors and their descendants are buried.

Watch Out For the Ghosts

A personal meditation on loss, family, home and reclamation through the artistic process of Adebunmi Gbadebo. Gbadebo creates works out of organic materials from the South Carolina plantation cemeteries where her formerly enslaved ancestors and their descendants are buried.

Suneil Sanzgiri’s work has been shaped by an ongoing investigation into the histories of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle in the Global South — rooted in his own family genealogy of resistance in Goa under Portuguese occupation. Here, he writes an impossible letter to Sita Valles, an Angolan doctor of Goan descent who, in the aftermath of April 25, left Lisbon to join the MPLA, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola. A film that unfolds through shifting cinematic techniques and anchors itself in a mutable aesthetic in an attempt to grapple with what struggle truly means. How can we unearth the solidarities that time and colonialism sought to erase? The director traces a latent mapping of anti-colonial movements uniting Asia and Africa under the former Portuguese yoke. Following the trail of revolutionary Sita Valles — born in Goa and killed in Angola — the director reveals deep connections between struggles that, though seemingly disconnected, echo on the same frequency of resistance. Through an immersive visual approach, where 16-mm film is literally buried and retrieved from the earth, the film operates as both an archaeological and narrative excavation. Sanzgiri bypasses what seems invisible or impossible to track, reconnecting the power of Afro-Asian solidarities.

Frenetic scenes and fast-moving images with some light flashes throughout the film but mostly at the very start

An Impossible Address

Haunted by questions of disappearance, loss and revolutionary struggle, An Impossible Address continues director Suneil Sanzgiri’s examination of the life of Sita Valles and the bonds of solidarity that developed between India and Africa against the Portuguese empire.

Chrononaut Shorts

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BlackStar Film Festival is an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the global majority, showcasing films by Black, Brown, and Indigenous people from around the world. Celebrate our 15th anniversary with us. Events will take place in person in Philadelphia and films will stream online around the world from August 6-9, 2026.

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BlackStar Film Festival an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities globally. 

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