For decades, Howard University has produced singular voices in film, creating a massive community of artists across disciplines and generations. That community will be on full display next week, Dec. 2-3, during the inaugural Black Light: A Howard Short Film Showcase, taking place at D.C.’s historic Miracle Theatre.

Organized by film professor and researcher Akosua Owusu and co-curated by MFA filmmaker Zion Murphy, the short film showcase will highlight work from Howard’s Undergraduate Directing for Film & TV students, MFA alumni filmmakers, and the Howard University Film Organization (HUFO). Additionally, filmmaker Terence Nance will screen two episodes from the latest season of his HBO show, “Random Acts of Flyness,” and Karyn Parsons (best known for her role as Hilary Banks in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and star of Owusu’s latest film) will join in a screening and Q&A session. 

The event is a chance for the next generation of Bison filmmakers to connect with people established in the industry and experience presenting their work to a real-world audience. 

“It really is about visibility, motivation, and legacy,” said Owusu. “Our students, they deserve to see their work in a real theater before they get to their thesis year and to really understand what it means to screen their work publicly and to carry forward the tradition of Black excellence that we celebrate at Howard.”

For Murphy, the showcase is an opportunity to display the astonishing spectrum of artistic vision across Howard’s film program. 

We wanted to tell a story about freedom and the links to get to freedom and what that means.

“I really wanted to showcase the breadth of what the MFA program can do,” Murphy said. “I purposefully was looking for really any film that I felt you might not see outside of Howard's MFA film program. We have neorealism, queer male stories, a horror film that has queer females at the forefront, stories about incarceration, documentaries about church. We have a large scope, lots of different styles, lots of different filmmaking practices, but all with a common goal, which is of course, I would say, liberation.”

Inspiration From Anywhere

That scope of style and practice is a defining trait of Howard film, as students bring their backgrounds in everything from poetry to acting to music to journalism. They collaborate closely with peers across the university, pouring their own perspectives into their work, an approach embodied by senior film and TV major Leila Gbelia’s journey in the program. 

“Interestingly, film was never on my radar,” she said of her first year at Howard. “I was initially a musician. I played the saxophone, piano, guitar, and I wanted to go into film scoring. So when I got into the film program at Howard, I always kind of wanted to base my film around music because with music, and film in general, there's always a rhythm to it, and obviously you have the motion portrayed on screen.”

Gbelia’s musical background inspired how she approached her thesis film, “Pipto,” an experimental ballet co-directed with senior film and TV major Othello Marin that will be screening during the showcase. 

“Pipto is the Greek word to fall,” Gbelia explained. “Me and Othello came up with the idea together; he has some theatre background, and we both love Greek mythology, so we instantly thought of Icarus and of getting too flying too close to the sun and how we can relate that to modern day issues, especially within the Black community. We wanted to tell a story about freedom and the links to get to freedom and what that means, especially to our characters, which are based on, of course, Icarus and Daedalus.”

For Murphy, this blend of interests and expertise is what makes Howard unique and expands the horizons of Black filmmaking. 

“These are emerging film makers who have clear, strong creative voices and they have something to say, but they are resisting stereotype,” he said. “If you think of what a Black film is, you might think ‘OK, this is overtly political, we're going to fight the power, fight the system, police brutality and all that.’ And those are all true. There are films like that that are valid, but there is just way more to say that has been kind of pushed to the side. So while we are able to curate this, it's been very heartening to see that we can gather all these films that aren't just one particular genre and showcase what we can do.”

Tickets for the Black Light short film festival are now available. Be sure to reserve your seat today.