March on Washington Film Festival: Throughlines from the Past Inspire the Present

Sixty years on, the civil rights movement continues to inspire art and activism through a local film festival.

Washington City Paper

The March on Washington Film Festival’s artistic director, Isisara Bey, has a vision for this year’s festival program. “What I want to show in the festival is how people took their inspiration and motivation from the civil rights era,” she says, “and turned it into action.”

Now in its 11th edition, MOWFF was founded in 2013 on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the landmark 1963 civil rights demonstration from which the fest took its name, with the goal of keeping the march relevant to 21st-century audiences. “The festival’s purpose is to unearth the myths told and untold or silenced stories of the civil rights movement and tie that to contemporary activism,” Bey says.

This year’s theme, Pulpits, Protest, and Power: The Church & the Civil Rights Movement, was inspired by Bey and festival founder Robert Raben ‘s appreciation for the Black church’s role as a safe haven, source of hope, and rallying point in civil rights activism.

While a slate of films anchor the festival, the event has evolved into a multi-disciplinary celebration of song, dance, DJing, and conversation that weaves together Black political, faith, community organizing, and cultural traditions. “We have a kinesthetic connection, a cultural connection, a spiritual connection to the arts” says Bey. “I wanted that to be part of the festival.”

Held annually, the 2023 MOWFF began its 10-day run on Sept. 24 with a screening of After Sherman. In this personal documentary, director Jon Sesrie Goff journeys through the Gullah community along the coastal U.S. South, exploring how a history of racial exclusion fostered unique enclaves for Black families; now their connection to this land is under threat from outside developers. The institution of the Black church, he shows, forms a continuous chain of solidarity and resistance for the community dating from the Civil War through the civil rights era to the modern-day activism of Goff’s own pastor father.

The screening was followed by an “afternoon soiree” with artists who connected their Gullah identity with both their artistic practice and their advocacy. The event ended with a participatory “ring shout” of singing and shuffling counterclockwise in a circle common to the region’s church services.

Free upcoming screenings include documentaries Little Richard: I Am Everything (Sept. 28) and The Space Race (Oct. 1). While entertainer Little Richard lived much of his life in the public eye, the film reveals his lesser-known efforts to integrate the disparate elements of his identity-his queerness, his faith, and his music. The outdoor screening at Union Market’s Hi-Lawn will be preceded by a rock ’n’ roll DJ with plenty of room to dance, says Bey.

Lisa Cortés and Diego Hurtado’s documentary The Space Race profiles the pioneering Black pilots, scientists, and engineers at NASA. The film, screening at Eaton Hotel, focuses on the years 1963 up through today’s Black Lives Matter movement in a quest for racial equality and recognition on Earth as much as in space.

MOWFF’s on-demand virtual film program, which runs through Oct. 1, offers several documentary portraits of civil rights era spiritual leaders such as Howard Thurman ( Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story), whose theology of radical nonviolence shaped the civil rights movement. The still active and iconic firebrand activist Rev. Al Sharpton is also featured in Loudmouth.

The festival’s intentional blending of entertainment and education is evident in its Pulpits, Protest and Power centerpiece event that takes place Saturday at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. The three theologians presenting at the event, each speaking about different generations of faith activism, will be joined by hip-hop dancers, gospel recording artist Yolanda Adams, and the school’s choir.

An award ceremony for the festival’s student and emerging filmmaker competition will also take place at the event. (The competition’s short films can be seen at a free screening earlier that day at Eaton Workshop.)

One of the films in competition, On Language, is directed by 23-year-old film student and Ward 7 resident Cameron Joy Gray. Her short draws a line from her experiences with language code switching and expectations about educational attainment to notions of racial identity and assimilation passed down through her mother, grandmother, and previous generations who migrated to D.C. from the segregated South.

The lessons of the civil rights era are still relevant to her Gen Z peers, Gray tells City Paper. “What’s really interesting to me about this year’s [festival] theme,” she says, “and that really connects to me and also to my generation is the power of advocacy.” She adds, “I think we have so much to learn about the power of our voice even when it feels like we don’t have any power.”

Gray’s taking from the past to inform the present perspective is exactly what Bey hopes will be the impact not only of the March on Washington Film Festival but also the ongoing struggle for racial justice: “I want people to see that this is a continuum,” offers Bey. “It’s not a sprint. It’s a multi-generational marathon.”

The March on Washington Film Festival runs through Oct. 1. marchonwashingtonfilmfestival.org. $20-$500.

Originally published at https://washingtoncitypaper.com on September 26, 2023.