Sojourner Truth Festival 2023

Among the many Missing Movies advisors at the University of Chicago for this great symposium of Black women filmmakers from the 1970s–today were filmmaker Shola Lynch; Cornell professor Samantha Sheppard, and distributors Amy Heller & Dennis Doros.

About Sojourner Truth Festival

In 1976, a groundbreaking group of Black feminist artists and activists launched the first Black women’s film festival—the Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts—highlighting the intersection of film, performance, poetry, and art within a Black feminist framework. Revived in 2023, the festival honored this legacy with a nine-week public screening series and a two-day symposium, connecting past and present through classroom discussions, archival reflection, and conversations with original and contemporary filmmakers.