Debuting in 2016, the Student and Emerging Filmmaker Competitions gives filmmakers the opportunity to use cinematic storytelling to answer important themes like “what’s your civil right?” and “speaking truth to power.” The annual short film competition receives over 150 submissions from across the world. An esteemed jury of civil rights, industry leaders, and established filmmakers select the winners, and the shortlisted films are screened during the festival. Now in its eighth year, the competition has continued to attract industry supporters, including a diverse portfolio of funders. Prizes for this competition are funded in part by the generosity of Deborah Zipser and Craig Emanuel.
The March On! Film Festival strives to increase awareness of the events and heroes of the Civil Rights Era and inspire renewed passion for activism. The festival uses the power of film, music, and the arts to share these important stories.
The Festival continues its Competition for Emerging and Student filmmakers to submit short form content, both narrative and documentary, which focuses on civil rights movements, the civil rights era and social justice issues.
Opal H. Bennett is the Emmy-winning Executive Producer at POV Shorts and Senior Producer at POV. Under her curation, POV Shorts won the 2020 and 2022 IDA Award for Best Short Form Series and the series broadcast the 2021 News & Documentary Emmy winner for Short Documentary, The Love Bugs.
Previously, Opal was Shorts Programmer and Director of Artist Development at DOC NYC and Senior Programmer at Athena Film Festival. Prior to that, Opal also worked with Nantucket Film Festival, Aspen ShortsFest, Tribeca Film Festival and consulted for The Gotham (formerly IFP). She is a Programming Consultant for March On!. Opal is a member of the AMPAS Documentary branch. She has served on juries for SxSW, HotDocs, Aspen & Palm Springs ShortsFests, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Seattle International Film Festivals and IndieMemphis Film Festival among others. She has also served on the shorts selection committees for Cinema Eye Honors and the IDA. Opal has participated on various selection committees for film programming and grants.
A Columbia Law grad, Opal holds a Masters in Media Studies from the London School of Economics, and received her B.A. from New York University.
Director Laurie Townshend learned early that we shape stories; thereafter, stories shape us. Her films include the dramatic short The Railpath Hero and Charley. Laurie’s feature documentary, A Mother Apart (2024) is an emotionally sweeping tale of healing that accompanies poet-activist Staceyann Chin as she re-imagines the essential art of mothering.
Sandra Rattley has over 40 years experience leading and launching multimedia projects. She was executive producer, director and writer of Searching for Augusta Savage. Rattley was also executive producer, director and writer for Unladylike2020, an animated documentary series about unsung women who changed America over a hundred years ago, which premiered on PBS’s biography series American Masters timed to the centennial of women’s suffrage and has attracted over 6 million viewers. With Charlotte Mangin, she is co-founder of Audacious Women Productions.
Marquise Mays is a filmmaker who examines Black life, especially in the Midwest. His work, featured on the Criterion Channel, PBS, BET, and The Redford Center, has earned a Webby Honor. His films, including Blindspot (2020), The Heartland (2021), and BLACK STRINGS (2023), carefully render collective Black experiences.
Majiye Uchibeke is a DGA Award-winning Director, BAFTA Finalist and Streaming Content Strategist with an MFA in Film and TV Production at USC School of Cinematic Arts.
As the Special Program Manager for Black Public Media, Qiona Woford has been instrumental in facilitating and coordinating some of BPMs talent development programs: 360 Incubator+, Story Summits, and PitchBLACK. She was also Associate Producer for 2 seasons of BPMs AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, which airs on PBS.
Diane McWhorter is the author of Carry Me Home, a history of the civil rights revolution in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. It won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Her young adult history of the Movement is A Dream of Freedom. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Mon Afrique is an experimental student short, shot on film, that explores the experience of diaspora and longing through the journey of a hand-carved traditional African mask. (USA, 4 MIN)
An energetic, young, white chick blurs the lines of black culture appreciation with appropriation, now she must avoid losing her dream job and her dignity. (USA, 11 MIN)
Alex is an activist who moved from Hong Kong to the US in fear of political persecution. As he is trying to rebuild his life, his ex-boyfriend Brandon unexpectedly visits him, rekindling unresolved desires. (USA, 18 MIN)
Amidst the gentrified remnants of Chicago's Cabrini Green, For Those That Lived There captures the haunting displacement of Black legacies and the emergence of migrant narratives, offering an evocative exploration of a community in metamorphosis. (USA, 6 MIN)
Inspired by sit-in campaigns of the South, Velma Murphy and Norman Hill organized wade-ins at Chicago's Rainbow Beach, braving mob violence. (USA, 15 MIN)
While documenting the birth of his niece, Director William Jenkins leads a series of intimate conversations with his father and half-brother — both named Ronald — as he confronts the impacts of Ronald’s incarceration on family dynamics. (USA, 27 MIN)
Mississippi civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer gives an impassioned speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention and a prophetic warning to America. (USA, 10 MIN)
A privileged, Black law student, trying to escape pressure from his dad, finds himself in a potential police violence situation. (USA, 18 MIN)
On the day of their green card interview, a young couple confronts a dangerous immigration process. (USA, 15 MIN)
Through the intimate lens of eight Black & Brown Trans, gender-diverse people, and masculine-presenting women, the social concept of gender is challenged. (USA, 10 MIN)
Born with a disability, a young music enthusiast is lured into a life of crime and spends a decade in jail after hanging with the wrong people. He discovers his purpose in jail: to help at-risk youth and prevent them from making the same mistakes he did. (USA, 10 MIN)
Explore the careers of the daughters of Title IX through the experiences of surgeons facing pervasive stereotypes and gender-based discrimination. (USA, 24 MIN)
Nana Adwoa Frimpong is a Ghanaian-Canadian director, writer, and creative producer who works across narrative and documentary film to illuminate stories of women and people of color. Her short documentary Healing in Color premiered on Magic Johnson’s AspireTV and PBS. Nana also frequently moderates Q+A’s through USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and IMAX.
DJ Johnson is Associate Professor in the Division of Media Arts + Practice at the University of
Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. He is a filmmaker and educator with over
twenty years of experience in media education, specializing in media strategies for social
change. DJ serves as Associate Director of Critical Media Project, a media education initiative
at the intersection of critical pedagogy and critical media literacy. He has worked with
universities and governmental institutions internationally to design media education curricula
and implement media production training programs, particularly in the Middle East and West
Africa.
Jon-Sesrie Goff is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and arts administrator. His work includes extensive research, visual documentation, and oral history interviews in the coastal American South on the legacy of Black land ownership and Gullah Geechee heritage preservation. He has offered his lens to a variety of projects spanning many genres, including the recently released and award-winning documentaries, including Out in the Night (POV, Logo 2015), Evolution of a Criminal (Independent Lens 2015), Spit on the Broom (2019), and his feature-length directorial debut After Sherman (POV, ITVS 2022), which premiered at True/False Film Festival and has screened at the 2022 editions of Tribeca Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival and received awards for best feature documentary film at the 2022 Atlanta Film Festival & 2022 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Yael Bridge is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her feature documentary, The Big Scary “S” Word, traces the history and resurgence of socialism in the US and premiered at Hot Docs 2020 and on Hulu in 2022. Prior to that she produced Left on Purpose, winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and Saving Capitalism, which was nominated for an Emmy.
Yoni Golijov is an Oscar-nominated and Independent Spirit Award-winning producer. Most recently, Golijov produced Laura Poitras’s feature film All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) about legendary artist and activist Nan Goldin; and the short film When We Fight, co-directed with Yael Bridge. He is interested in collective action and decision-making.
Nevo Shinaar is a Chicago based producer. His award-winning films have been nominated at the Academy Awards, played at film festivals including Sundance, SXSW and AFI Docs, and acquired by Disney+, HBO Max, NYTimes, and the Criterion Channel. Nevo currently serves as the Head of Development for Mitten Media for both documentary and scripted.
Denae Peters is a documentary impact consultant, grantmaker and programmer. She is currently the Program Officer who leads Perspective Fund’s program to support organizations and initiatives advancing the documentary impact ecosystem. Previously, Denae led impact campaigns for 15+ documentary releases and has been on programming teams for the TIFF, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and Tribeca.
A spunky girl helping her mother in the fields must choose between putting soccer or family first. (10:46 MIN)
An Asian American single mother seeks a way of abortion in recent Texas after her recent divorce. (13:18 MIN)
When a Black teen is pulled over by an angry cop, he must use his father’s advice to navigate the struggle and quiet his own rage in order to survive the traffic stop that threatens to put an end to his night and possibly his life. (15:02 MIN)
“On Language” is an essay film that combines archival footage, video, and on-screen text to discuss the intersections of language and culture and race in everyday life. (06:10 MIN)
A poetic tribute to writer, poet and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed alongside eight other activists for opposing the environmental damage done in their oil-rich homeland, Ogoni. (24:00 MIN)
The life of Francis Uyemastu, a Japanese immigrant, told through the words of Mary Uyematsu Kao, his granddaughter, and Chuck Currier, a local historian and former teacher. Francis Uyematsu created a successful flower nursery, owning over 130 acres of land, until the Japanese Internment during World War 2, where he was forced to sell his land. Entire neighborhoods now sit on his former land, filled with hundreds of homes and high schools, and the flowers he created are no longer his. (07:42 MIN)
(13:37 MIN)
Samantha is the strong-willed first-generation Latina daughter of an immigrant who is passionate about alternative punk rock music. Much to her mother’s disapproval, she has a band performing at the local Battle of the Bands. Rosa is a stoic immigrant mother who has held various labor jobs in her lifetime and holds traditional Mexican values. Will Rosa ultimately accept and support her daughter’s journey? (12:41 MIN)
July 2020, at the peak of the pandemic in the city of Los Angeles, misunderstandings and conflicts between a Chinese immigrant father, a white restaurant owner, and a young black man escalate into a tumultuous climax… (28:53 MIN)
The Black String Triage Ensemble, an all-African American string orchestra in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, performs on the scene in the immediate aftermath of incidents of gun violence, altering the notion of “first responders.” In a city with such a troubled relationship with violence, can this ensemble transform the traumatized public space into a place of recovery, healing and hope? (12:00 MIN)
Over 50 years ago, New York State assemblyman George Michaels cast a single vote that changed the course of American history but destroyed his political career in the process. For the first time, Deciding Vote shares the story of how Michaels defied his conservative constituents by casting the critical tie-breaking vote on a bill which legalized abortion in the state of New York, laying the groundwork for Roe v Wade. The film is a moving tribute to a now-forgotten act of political courage. (20:00 MIN)
Troubled Waters is an experimental short that examines the relationship between the black community and water, how it has both been weaponized against us, and employed by us, to empower and resist oppression. (04:34 MIN)
His most recent short ‘R.E.S.T.’ was the recipient of the emerging narrative Jury award at 2021 March On! and was a finalist in the Best Sci Fi category and the Next Generation Indie Film Awards. He is currently working on a serial titled Good People
The senior series producer of PBS Frontline, where she is working to expand and diversify its investigative journalism ranks, seeking out new journalists and supporting them as they develop long-form documentary proposals, and as they report, produce and edit their films.
An award-winning director, originally from Qingdao, China, and is now based in Beijing. She has a BFA from the Communication University of China, and an MFA in Film and Television Production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Her short documentary film Unfinished Lives (2020) won the gold medal in the Student Academy Award. Yucong’s film practice is centered on the shared human experience, from marginalized communities and immigration crises, to interpersonal connections like encounters and farewells.
Emily Keatingis the Director of Development and Education at the Kunhardt Film Foundation, where she to contributes to the strategic vision of the organization, cultivates and sustains funding, manages curriculum development, and supports a community of educators and engaged audiences. Prior to KFF, Emily was Director of Education at the Jacob Burns Film Center. She is an adjunct faculty member in the Literacy Department at Pace University. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Virginia and M.A. in Humanities Education from New York University.
The Series Producer for Op-Docs, the award-winning short documentary series from The New York Times. Previously she worked at POV, the long-running, independent documentary showcase on PBS. She graduated from Northwestern University with a focus on journalism and political science.
Born and raised in the Gullah/Geechee Lowcountry of South Carolina in the small town of Pawley’s Island, Sheldon Scott now lives and works in Washington, DC as an artist. His work plays in the intersection of Race, Sexuality and Economics, while impugning mythologies of Black Male supernaturality. He is an alumnus of the Capital Fringe Theatre Festival and (e)merge Art Fair. His storytelling has been shared on the stages of Busboys & Poets, Story District and The Moth, where he serves as host for the DC outpost.
THE BOND | Director: Jahmil Eady
Pregnant and incarcerated, Aria fights for her most precious connection against a system designed to isolate her. (USA, 16 MIN)
WORDS BETWEEN PHRASES | Director: Ben Bernard
When a college student fights for the removal of a whipping post in his hometown, he is forced to reevaluate his priorities and his intrinsic biases. (USA, 20 MIN)
SHIKATA GA NAI “IT CANNOT BE HELPED” | Director: Kevin Kodama
A fantasy romance set in the ruins of a Japanese American internment camp where a young couple attempts to reconcile their relationship as ghosts. (USA, 11 MIN)
QUARANTINE KIDS | Directors: Bilal Motley, Bria Motley
Quarantine Kids tells the courageous story of 9 year old Bria Motley in her own words. Using previously recorded audio notes, home video and animation, Quarantine Kids is an honest, poignant, funny, and at times, heartbreaking testimony from a child’s point of view. (USA, 7 MIN)
#BLACKATSMU | Directors: Aysia Lane, Crislyn Fayson
#BlackAtSMU is an experimental documentary that uses an amalgamation of dramatic retellings, experimental explorations, and investigative interviews to explore a critical question: what is it like to be a Black student at a Predominantly White Institution? (USA, 34 MIN)
HEALING IN COLOR | Director: Nana Adwoa Frimpong
In a world where Black women are expected to be invulnerable to pain, five Black women confront their personal struggles and explore healing through art. (USA, 24 MIN)
COLOR | Director: Carly Rogers
A rookie officer must decide where her loyalties lie when her partner pulls his weapon on a black teen in her old neighborhood.(USA, 8 MIN)
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS | Director: Christopher Thomas Brown
Librarian Joshua Turner has made it his life’s work to inspire young people in his community with the power of books. When a medical emergency sends him to the hospital, those seeds of inspiration come full circle to save his life. (USA, 11 MIN)
OTIS’ DREAM | Director: Jason & Blue
Follow Otis Moss, Sr. on election day 1946 through his day-long journey to cast his ballot in rural Georgia. Powerful, poignant, and prescient as today’s struggles with voter suppression multiply.(USA, 15 MIN)
BAD HOMBREWOOD | Director: Guillermo Casarin
Through compelling interviews with creatives including Phil Lord, Lee Unkrich, and Guillermo Del Toro, and archival footage, Bad Hombrewood reveals the dark side of Hollywood’s history and the challenges Latinx filmmakers face while trying to succeed in the entertainment industry. (USA, 24 MIN)
RECLAIMING OUR COLLECTIVE STRENGTH | Director: Lori Webster Fore
The Black church is alive and well. See our faith in action, as we organize the church to reclaim our collective strength on the frontlines of social justice. (USA, 20 MIN)
WHEN WE FIGHT | Directors: Yael Bridge, Yoni Golijoy
The Black church is alive and well. See our faith in action, as we organize the In the second largest school district in America, 98% of teachers voted to go on strike. When We Fight goes behind the picket lines to show how and why teachers strike. (USA, 30 MIN) to reclaim our collective strength on the frontlines of social justice. (USA, 20 MIN)
BY YOUR SIDE | Directors: Debbie Africa, Mike Africa Sr.
MOVE activists, Mike and Debbie Africa, tell the story of their young lives, their hopes, dreams and fears–the story of their determination and commitment to never giving up. (USA, 16 MIN)
IT TAKES A CIRCUS | Director: Sarah D. Collins, Zoe Chiriseri Ramushu
Aaliyah, 18, soars on aerial silks. Her cousin Bre, 16, twirls on lyra hoops. The girls dream of escaping the violence that has marred their young lives, and their possible ticket out is Trenton Circus Squad. (USA, 28 MIN)
UNFINISHED LIVES | Director: Yucong Chen
In 2014, 24-year-old USC graduate student, Xinran Ji, was beaten to death by four teens when returning home from a study session. Lawyer, Rose Tsai, advocates tirelessly as his parents and the larger community attempt to understand the senseless tragedy. (USA, 23 MIN)
BLACK THOUGHTS | Director: Dwayne Logan
Aiming to bridge the divide that exists between embattled Americans, Black Thoughts places viewers within the history-ravaged mind of a broken-hearted Black man, as he contemplates how confusion has kept citizens engaged in an endless cycle of conflict. (USA, 30 MIN)
R.E.S.T. | Director: Jon Appel
In Philadelphia, where Kay is plagued by extreme hours at her grocery store job, a product called R.E.S.T. (Rapid Eye Stimulation Treatment) is distributed to the masses through the televised guise of the Polites. (USA, 25 MIN)
MIDNIGHT OIL | Director: Bilal Motley
First-time filmmaker and refinery worker, Bilal Motley, struggles to reconcile his love and kinship for his distressed refinery brothers and sisters and his growing awareness of the surrounding communities of color, fighting for environmental justice. (USA, 30 MIN)
SINCE YOU ARRIVED, MY HEART STOPPED BELONGING TO ME | Director: Erin Semine Kökdil
Central American mother’s journey by bus through Mexico, searching for their children who migrated north towards the United States but disappeared en route. (USA, 20 MIN)
TO THE PLATE | Director: Gopika Ajay and Annick Laurent
Restaurateur Moonlynn Tsai and girlfriend Yin Chang struggle to keep their local business alive and serve their community in the face of anti-Asian crimes. (USA, 23 MIN)
Charles Belk | President/CEO of DigiSolve
Alison Sotomayor | Award-winning independent documentary and television producer
Monica Wise | March On! ‘20 Grand Prize Winner, Emerging Documentary; Colombian American documentary filmmaker and journalist based in Mexico City
Nicholas Buccola | Professor of political science and the Elizabeth and Morris Glicksman Chair in Political Science at Linfield University
Jacques Thelemaque | Multiple award-winning writer, producer and director
Mohammed Saffouri | March On! ‘20 Grand Prize Winner, Student Documentary; founder of Sirius Productions, and a Capital Emmy-winning filmmaker
