Black Star Film Festival is an annual Philadelphia based film festival that celebrates “the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and global communities of color — showcasing films by Black, Brown, and Indigenous people from around the world” (blackstarfest.org). Founded by curator, filmmaker and writer Maori Karmael Holmes in 2012, BlackStar Film Festival has quickly evolved into a major platform that serves filmmakers of color around the world, with support from a number of prestigious financial backers as well as attention from major distributors (indiewire.com)

I worked as a screening intern at BlackStar Film Festival this year, reviewing submissions from the short narrative category and the experimental category. The internship was conducted remotely. Submissions assigned to me were updated on my FilmFreeway portal, and I would watch them, rate them based on nine categories: originality/creativity, direction, writing, cinematography, performances, production value, pacing, structure, and sound/music. An average score will then get calculated automatically by the system, and become my overall rating of the film. I would also write a short paragraph of my thoughts for each submission. The internship runs from January 13th to April 11th, and there were two meetings held through Zoom, one before the start date and one after the end date. 

BlackStar Film Festival not only showcases films, but also connects filmmakers with each other and fosters a community of filmmakers and film lovers. While Philadelphia is not commonly recognized as a major city for film production, BlackStar establishes a platform that expands the potentiality of Philadelphia as a cultural space of independent filmmaking (Philadelphia premiere status is indeed one of the questions on BlackStar’s submission form), where independent BIPOC filmmakers have the opportunity to have their voices heard.

-Rubing Zhang