15TH REEL SISTERS FILM FESTIVAL at LIU Brooklyn, Oct. 13th and 14th

The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, a Brooklyn-based film festival founded by African Voices magazine and LIU Brooklyn, celebrates 15 years on October 13th and 14th with films by women of color from across the world. Events of note during the festival include an awards ceremony, a professional editing workshop and the Brooklyn premiere of Soul Food Junkies.

This year’s honorees are pioneering actor/producer couple Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid, founders of New Millennium Studios and veteran casting director Winsome Sinclair, founder of Winsome Sinclair and Associates and co-founder of Legacy Media Group.

Films on the Reel Sisters schedule include: Salay, in which a young woman desperate for an education may have to leave her father and village in Sierra Leone; White Sugar in a Black Pot, about a mother forced to make a difficult decision and The Future Wags of Great Britain, about two sisters who form a plan to get money from insider football tips. Among the docs are: The First Lady of Little Rock: Daisy Bates, about the controversial Black Civil Rights activist and feminist; Hubble Diverse Universe, profiling six Black and three Hispanic American astronomers and astrophysicists; The Cut, following a teen about to endure a rite of female circumcision in Kenya and a young woman raising her voice in protest, and Why Do You Have Black Dolls?, which introduces a community of little-known Black-doll enthusiasts and the significance of these cultural artifacts. 

This year, Reel Sisters proudly presents the Brooklyn premiere of Byron Hurt's award-winning PBS documentary, Soul Food Junkies. In this film Hurt, baffled by his dad's unwillingness to change his traditional soul-food diet in the face of a health crisis, sets out to learn more about this rich culinary tradition and its relevance to Black culturalidentity. He discovers that the love affair his dad and his community have with soul food is deep-rooted, complex, and in some tragic cases, deadly. 

In addition to the film screenings, there are workshops and panel discussion. To view the full schedule, visit www.reelsisters.org.

There’s something for everyone at this year’s Reel Sisters Film Festival. Tickets $7-$25, with reduced rates for seniors, students and groups. Purchase tickets at kumbletheater.org or call 718-488-1624. 

We hope to see you all there!