We are pleased to announce our 2025 film series and discussions! This year we partner with the Little Carver at 226 N. Hackberry to ensure your consistent comfort. The theatre opens at 5:30 PM and showtime is at 6:00 PM for each screening. This series is sponsored in part by Humanities Texas.
ALL SCREENINGS ARE FREE BUT REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.
FEBRUARY 7, 2025 (Friday)
“MILES OF SMILES” (NR)(58 minutes)(1989)
Producers: Paul Wagner and Jack Santino.
“Miles of Smiles” chronicles the organizing of the first black trade union – the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This inspiring story of the Pullman porters provides one of the few accounts of African American working life between the Civil War and World War II.
“Miles of Smiles” describes the harsh discrimination which lay behind the porters’ smiling service. Narrator Rosina Tucker, a 100 year old union organizer and porter’s widow, describes how after a 12 year struggle led by A. Philip Randolph, the porters won the first contract ever negotiated with black workers. Miles of Smiles both recovers an important chapter in the emergence of black America and reveals a key source of the Civil Rights movement.
MARCH 7, 2025 (Friday)
“IDA B. WELLS: A PASSION FOR JUSTICE” (NR)(53 minutes)(1989)
Recognized in 2020 with a special Pulitzer Prize, Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a household name in Black America during much of her lifetime (1863-1931) and was considered the equal of her well-known African American contemporaries such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
“Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice” documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells’ memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards.
“One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” – Ida B. Wells
APRIL 4, 2025 (Friday)
“HUSH (Help Us Say Help) | A Documentary on Black Mental Health” (NR)(76 minutes)
This 76-minute documentary produced and directed by Antwon Lindsey addresses Black mental health and discusses the origins of generational trauma and access to mental health resources within Black communities. The documentary strives to increase the prioritization and awareness of mental health resources within Black communities.
MAY 9, 2025 (Friday)
“HIGH RISK”
This documentary film addresses the high maternal mortality rate of Black women in the United States. In “High Risk”, we explore natural methods and best practices proven to protect Black mothers from prenatal to postpartum care. The ultimate goal of our documentary is to empower Black women through education, making them aware of numerous strategies to use with confidence to advocate for themselves and their babies. The production team interviewed mothers, midwives, doulas, and healthcare professionals to learn how Black women of today continue the maternal legacies of their African forebears. We consider how the current healthcare system can improve by treating Black mothers with the dignity, respect and care that they deserve.
TICKETS
JUNE 13, 2025 (Friday)
“BLACK IS… BLACK AIN’T”, the final film by filmmaker Marlon Riggs. Black Is…Black Ain’t, jumps into the middle of explosive debates over Black identity. Black Is…Black Ain’t is a film every African American should see, ponder and discuss.
White Americans have always stereotyped African Americans. But the rigid definitions of “Blackness” that African Americans impose on each other, Riggs claims, have also been devastating. Is there an essential Black identity? Is there a litmus test defining the real Black man and true Black woman?
Riggs uses his grandmother’s gumbo as a metaphor for the rich diversity of Black identities. His camera traverses the country, bringing us face to face with Black folks young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight, grappling with the paradox of numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness. Riggs mixes performances by choreographer Bill T. Jones and poet Essex Hemphill with commentary by noted cultural critics Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, Cornel West, Michele Wallace, Barbara Smith and Maulana Karenga to create a flavorful stew of personal testimony, music, and history.
While Black Is…Black Ain’t rejoices in Black diversity, many speakers bare their pain at having been silenced or excluded because they were perceived as “not Black enough” or conversely “too Black.” Black Is…Black Ain’t marshals a powerful critique of sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, colorism and cultural nationalism in the Black family, church and other Black institutions.
TICKETS
JULY 3, 2025 (Thursday)
“QUEEN COLLECTIVE–CAMP FOUNDER GIRLS CENTENNIAL SPECIAL”
In 2024, BET and Queen Collective partnered to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Camp Founder Girls, the first summer camp for Black girls in the United States. The celebration included a BET Her Presents: Queen Collective episode titled “Camp Founder Girls Centennial Special”, which featured Queen Latifah introducing documentary filmmaker Contessa Gayles. Gayles’ 2022 Queen Collective film, Founder Girls, is about a group of girls who find themselves at the historically Black summer camp. 59 min.
TICKETS
AUGUST 1, 2025 (Friday)
“JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF THE TICKET”
James Baldwin (1924-1987) was at once a major twentieth century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, Black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy. James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket captures on film the passionate intellect and courageous writing of a man who was born black, impoverished, gay and gifted.
“James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket” uses striking archival footage to evoke the atmosphere of Baldwin’s formative years – the Harlem of the 30s, his father’s fundamentalist church and the émigré demimonde of postwar Paris. Newsreel clips from the ’60’s record Baldwin’s running commentary on the drama of the Civil Rights movement. The film also explores his quiet retreats in Paris, the South of France, Istanbul and Switzerland – places where Baldwin was able to write away from the racial tensions of America.
Writers Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, William Styron and biographer David Leeming place Baldwin’s work in the African-American literary tradition – from slave narratives and black preaching to their own contemporary work. The film skillfully links excerpts from Baldwin’s major books – Go Tell it on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Blues for Mister Charlie, If Beale Street Could Talk – to different stages in Black-white dialogue and conflict.
TICKETS
SEPTEMBER 2, 2025 (Friday)
“REMEMBER ME: DEMENTIA IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY”
What is dementia? Why is it disproportionately impacting black and brown communities? What are the risk factors? What can we do to reverse the trends? What is the role of the Black church? What is the impact on caregiving? African Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of progressive dementia, and the numbers are expected to get worse in the coming years. After seeing how dementia was ravaging his family, impact filmmaker C. Nathaniel Brown set out on a quest to share a piece of his family’s story and those of others living with dementia and caregivers caring for loved ones with dementia to bring awareness to the disparities of this health crisis. Interviews also include dementia experts, neuropsychologists, researchers, educators, and community leaders. Written and directed by C. Nathaniel Brown.
TICKETS
OCTOBER 2025
“BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN”
This film asks “Why?” It presents a vivid drama, intermingling the personal and the political, about one of the most enigmatic figures in 20th-century American history. One of the first “freedom riders,” an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the March on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Bayard Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason – he was gay.
TICKETS
NOVEMBER 2025
“INVISIBLE WARRIORS” by Gregory S. Cooke. Film about the Black “Rosie The Riveters”, the 600k Black women engaged in the war effort!
TICKETS
DECEMBER 5, 2025 (Friday):
“BRICK BY BRICK: A CIVIL RIGHTS STORY”
This film shows that segregation has been as virulent and persistent in the North as in the South and that it too has resulted from deliberate public policies based in deep-rooted racial prejudice. The film uses the bitter struggle over equal housing rights in Yonkers, New York during the1980s to show the “massive resistance” the Civil Rights Movement confronted when it moved north. “Brick by Brick” is not only a brilliant legal history of one of the most important cases in civil rights law, it narrates through the passionate experiences of Yonkers residents on both sides of the issue. The film demonstrates how courageous citizens and dedicated lawyers can enforce the constitutional rights of African Americans in the face of dangerous demagogues fomenting racial hatred.
TICKETS