Bringing together five films from recent Festival editions, this shorts program moves through Black interiority and the everyday, from music and artistic practice to love, parenthood, memory, and remembrance. Rooted largely in Chicago while reaching beyond it, these films offer distinct portraits of Black life across form and experience, finding space for confrontation, tenderness, experimentation, and the histories we carry with us.
PROGRAM
BAILEY’S BLUES
2025, Shiloh Tumo Washington, U.S., 11 min, In English | Format: Digital
When a French journalist interviews a Chicago-born blues musician, racial resentment from the 1960s rises to the surface. What begins as a generic interview becomes a charged conversation about the music business, race, and society at large. Played at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival in 2025.
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER DAY
2023, Bronzeville Collective, U.S., 16 min, In English | Format: Digital
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER DAY follows John Caleb Pendleton’s Juneteenth floral installation, offering a poetic portrait of a community gathering centered on remembrance and celebration. Played at the 59th Chicago International Film Festival in 2023.
ALL THE LOVE I COULD HANDLE
2025, Ruby Rose Collins, U.S., 14 min., In English | Format: Digital
Inspired by the life of filmmaker Kathleen Collins, ALL THE LOVE I COULD HANDLE follows a woman navigating the delicate balance between her artistic career, motherhood, and the demands of single parenting. Played at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival in 2025.
ABOUT TIME
2024, Donald Conley, U.S., 14 min, In English | Format: Digital
Ex-lovers Lamar and Sidney reconnect after several years apart in a tender reckoning with their relationship and the time that has passed between them. Played at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival in 2024.
NOT DEAD (MORTO NÃO)
2025, Alex Reis, Brazil, 14 min., In Portuguese with English subtitles | Format: Digital
Blending animation, stop-motion, and live-action performance, NOT DEAD presents an experimental meditation on W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk as new parents grapple with the world their young Black son will inherit. Played at 61st Chicago International Film Festival in 2025.
Black Perspectives at 30: Through the Lens
Celebrating three decades of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Black Perspectives program, from Chicago filmmakers to artists working across continents, THROUGH THE LENS looks back at some of the most resonant Black stories to grace the Festival’s screens. Reaching into the vast expanse of Black imagination, the series gathers films that have made space for Black interiority, collective memory, experimentation, love, and possibility. Together, these works celebrate the extraordinary breadth of Black cinema and the generations of filmmakers who have shaped the legacy of Black Perspectives.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu