United Black Students and UTrailblazers Canes Black History Film Festival

The School of Communication is pleased to announce the second annual United Black Students and UTrailblazers Canes Black History Film Festival. We seek short films that reflect on University of Miami’s rich Black History. We welcome short films on any aspect of Black History (including Black diasporic history) as well as films from any genre, including, but not limited to documentary, news, comedy, experimental, and drama. Thematically, we invite short films that reflect on Blackness, broadly construed. We are particularly interested in films that are based on contents in the UTrailblazers Experience, current events, and/or Black student experience(s) on a multicultural campus.

The goal of the festival is to enhance and highlight the UTrailblazers Experience at the Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., Breezeway at the Cosford Cinema which honors the pioneers who paved the way for generations of Black students at the University of Miami. As such, we encourage filmmakers to visit the UTrailblazers Experience for inspiration.

We invite submissions from University of Miami undergraduate and graduate students. Those entries that specifically engage with “The UTrailblazer Experience” will receive an additional point in the scoring. The winning film will be featured in the UTrailblazers Experience Kiosk. Each submission must include a statement (up to 250 words) explaining the connection to or inspiration for the film.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE
All submissions must include an original film (not to exceed 12 minutes), a statement (up to 250 words) explaining the film’s connection to or inspiration from the UTrailblazers Experience, and a high resolution image that can be used as a film poster. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. EST. All films should be submitted at https://filmfreeway.com/CanesBlackHistoryFilmFestival and statements and images should be emailed to Professor Alfred Martin at AlfredMartin@miami.edu. Entries missing either the film submission or the statement will be disqualified.