Photo Credit: Rashid Zakat

Greetings! It’s Chakka, KG’s Digital Content Producer and I’m extremely excited about this year’s Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF). This year’s programming has an amazing mix of premieres and great films from previous years. This year also has a great collection of films that cover various facets of the African diaspora, and here’s a short list of some of my recommendations as well as my watch list.

Films That I’ve Seen:

Daughters of the Dust: [CIFF Schedule Link] CIFF commemorates the 25th anniversary of this breakthrough feature film from director Julie Dash, which continues to influence films such as Beyonce’s 2016 visual album Lemonade. Dash holds the distinction of being the first African American women to direct a feature film that received a national theatrical release. Dust tells the story of three generations of Gullah women who prepare to leave their community, an island inhabited by the descendents of enslaved West Africans, to go north.

9 Rides: [CIFF Schedule Link] Director Matthew Cherry (The Last Fall) made this feature with an iPhone 6S and less than two weeks of shooting. The result is a suspenseful, somber portrait of an Uber driver who gets some unexpected news on New Year’s Eve. After I saw this film I immediately wanted to upgrade my iPhone and work on my first narrative short.

Films That I Want To See

Moonlight: [CIFF Festival Link] Director Barry Jenkins’ (Medicine for Melancholy) story about a young gay Black man’s struggle with love and sexual identity is told in three acts.

I Am Not Your Negro: [CIFF Schedule Link] Haitian director Raoul Peck (Lumumba) directs this documentary essay about acclaimed author James Baldwin unfinished book Remember This House, which gives an account of the lives and assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers.

Shorts 1 - Think Locally (City and State): [CIFF Schedule Link] I love the impact and efficiency of well-told short stories, and this shorts program is dedicated to stories produced in Chicago and Illinois. I’m particularly excited about the short Pronouns, the story of a young Chicago slam poet boldly struggles to proclaim their identity in front of an unlikely audience.