Black Women Directors Monthly December 2024

Dec 06, 2024

Filmmaker Victoria Mahoney

❄️Welcome to December!❄️

…Aaaaand we have made it to the end of 2024. What a weird ride it’s been, I’m not even gonna hold you. This year definitely had its fair share of peaks and valleys, but the most important thing is we’re still here, and we still have opportunities to collectively bond over our shared love of films made by Black women and nonbinary filmmakers from around the globe. Here’s the final BWD newsletter of 2024. See you in 2025!

BWD News

Albany Road

Check out this NPR interview of Lynn Whitfield discussing the road trip rom-com Albany Road, directed by the amazing Christine Swanson.

Recommended Events

And Nothing Happened

Dahomey screening at American Cinematheque in L.A. - Dec. 6

Alfreda's Cinema presents Masterclass Freestyle with Naima Ramos-Chapman at BAM Brooklyn - Dec. 18

10th Anniversary of the film Selma at the Academy Museum in L.A. - Jan. 18, 2025

Filmmaker Opportunities

Chicken and Egg Films research and development grant
ShowRunHer documentary film grants
Dok.Inkubator documentary film workshop

BWD Recommended Viewing

Mountains (2024) dir: Monica Sorelle

Mountains is at once a lyrical, humorous, and sharp family portrait of a Haitian-American family in Miami, and a subtle critique of the forces of gentrification and anti-Blackness from other people of color. It’s a self-assured debut from director Monica Sorelle.

In Mountains, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood. Xavier works with a wrecking crew of Latinos and Black American men. Together, they tear down old houses to make space for new builds and whiter residents. He yearns for a better home for his wife, Esperance, a talented seamstress who moonlights as a crossing guard for extra money, and his son, Junior, an aspiring stand-up comedian.

I love how Sorelle gives each member of the family space within the story, keeping a documentarian’s light touch and occasionally allowing for flights of fancy, like a close-up of the stark white fabric of a young girl’s first communion dress or following a spontaneous dance party that breaks out in the middle of a quiet residential block, all of which reveal how tight-knit the Haitian community is in this corner of Miami.

This closely observed style allows for their three different views of the American Dream to come to light. For Xavier, it’s a bigger house in a “better” neighborhood. For Esperance, it’s the home she has already created and kept in Little Haiti. For Junior, it’s stardom—eeked out from humble beginnings, performing in intimate clubs for modest audiences. Each perspective weaves a tapestry of the hard work and sacrifice it takes to be an immigrant and a first-generation American in this country — from navigating external racism to confronting internal tensions within one’s own community.

Mountains subtly examines the effects of gentrification on individuals and neighborhoods, as well as the often tense, shaky alliances between Black and Latino communities in America. These themes have taken on new significance in the wake of recent election results. The film also asks us to consider what it means not just to make a home but to keep it in the face of systems designed to exclude historically marginalized people from certain stations in life.

Check out the main site for more information on where to watch films by Black women and non-binary directors. And let me know in the comments what you’re watching!

Thanks for reading! You can also follow BWD on Instagram and TikTok. (Although I am on a quasi-social media break and haven’t been posting in those places as much.)

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