CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 30th ANNIVERSARY OF BLACK PERSPECTIVES PROGRAM


CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 30th ANNIVERSARY OF BLACK PERSPECTIVES PROGRAM


2026 Program Features An Evening With Marlon Wayans, Tributes to Cheryl Dunye, Sophie Okonedo, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor; Ava DuVernay, David Greaves to Present New Works


CHICAGO, Illinois (September 14, 2026) - The Chicago International Film Festival will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its Black Perspectives program throughout this year’s 62nd edition of the Festival with tributes, retrospective screenings, and a special program honoring Marlon Wayans. Founded in 1997 in collaboration with Spike Lee, the Festival’s Black Perspectives program exists to highlight the excellence and diversity of Black American cinema and films by the African diaspora from around the world. The longest-running competitive film festival in North America, the 62nd Chicago International Film Festival runs October 14 - 25, 2026.


In An Evening with Marlon Wayans, the legendary actor, comedian, writer, producer, and director sits down for an in-depth conversation about his dynamic career that spans film, television, and stand-up comedy on Monday, October 19. Wayans is set to receive the Festival’s Career Achievement Award at the event, for his fearless and prolific body of work from breakthrough performances in groundbreaking satires such as WHITE CHICKS to wildly inventive turns in the record-breaking SCARY MOVIE franchise and A HAUNTED HOUSE. Equally compelling is Wayans’ dramatic work, from his acclaimed performance in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM to more recent appearances in RESPECT and AIR, where he brought authenticity, heart, and subtle humor to real-life figures. Actor and producer Omar Epps, star of Chicago-filmed MOSES THE BLACK and the upcoming Hulu football drama series THE LAND, is set to moderate.


With two films in this year’s Chicago International Film Festival, actor Sophie Okonedo stars in CLARISSA, directors Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri’s adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway, set in modern-day Lagos, Nigeria, an evocative drama that captures post-colonial tensions, memory, and desire across a single momentous day. She is also set to pick up the Festival’s Spotlight Award at the previously announced Centerpiece presentation of MOUSE.


Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who last appeared at the Chicago International Film Festival with 2021’s Closing Night presentation of KING RICHARD, will receive the Festival’s Tour de Force Award at a World Premiere Special Presentation of Sterling Macer, Jr.’s  LIZ HERE NOW, where she mesmerizes with a commanding, powerhouse performance as a devoted caregiver shielding two white children from domestic dysfunction in the 1960s. Ellis-Taylor has starred in previous Festival Special Presentations, including in 2024’s Centerpiece RaMell Ross’s NICKEL BOYS, and Titus Kaphar’s absorbing EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS that same year. Her early work with performances in THE BOOK OF NEGROES, THE HELP, RAY, and IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK demonstrated her remarkable ability to move effortlessly between intimate character drama and stories of profound historical significance.


In honor of the foundational classic of New Queer Cinema’s own 30th anniversary, THE WATERMELON WOMAN writer, director, and star Cheryl Dunye will receive the Festival’s Career Achievement Award at a special retrospective screening of the landmark queer comedy following a video store clerk who unearths the hidden history of a 1930s Black actress, followed by a conversation with CHOCOLATE BABIES director Stephen Winter, on October 16. Another groundbreaking entry in the New Queer Cinema movement set at the height of the 1990s AIDS epidemic in New York City, CHOCOLATE BABIES will enjoy its own retrospective screening later in the Festival.


Other highlights of the 30th anniversary program include presentations of two landmark documentary features. Ava DuVernay will appear at the screening of 14th, tracking her conversations with scholars, politicians, and legal experts about the 14th Amendment, exploring who gets to belong in America and what rights they’re entitled to. Meanwhile, director David Greaves will be on hand to present a sublime snapshot of a 1972 cocktail party filled with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM, revealing the complexities of the world-renowned artistic movement, co-directed by his late father, William Greaves. The film has the distinction of being the only title to play at the Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and Chicago International Film Festivals.


Also playing as part of the Black Perspectives program are Alain Gomis’s DAO, weaving parallel timelines to bring together a contemporary French wedding and an ancestral West African funeral; directors Arlieta Hall and Brittany Alsot’s joyful, moving documentary FINDING YOUR LAUGHTER, featuring a Chicago comedian using improv techniques to care for her father as he battles Alzheimer’s; CONGO BOY, based on director Rafiki Fariala’s own experience as a Congolese teen refugee protecting his family while holding onto his musical dreams; BEN’IMANA, a stunning, intimate portrait of defiance and forgiveness following a Rwandan genocide survivor whose convictions are tested by her daughter’s unexpected pregnancy by director Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo; Elijah Davis’s THREE COLORS: PAN-AFRICAN, connecting three stories across the Pan-African flag as an injured athlete, an evicted mother, and a sitcom star fight to survive in modern Black America; U.S. Premiere ANA, EN PASSANT, director Fernanda Salgado’s lyrical animated drama portraying a young woman who travels to Brazil and encounters her exact double following her grandmother’s death in Paris; and the U.S. Premiere of Gessica Généus’s MARIE MADELEINE, following a fiercely independent sex worker and a preacher’s son as they navigate desire, Vodou roots, and religious dogma in Haiti.


Official shorts program selections explore the ideas of grief and loss of connection in Black Perspectives: Love With No Place to Go, a collection of seven films including Cameron Clay’s JESUS IS COMING (to take the Church away) in which a Southern church community deals with extraterrestrial activity; WHEN THEY’RE GONE from directors Ragan Henderson and Lauryn Darden, featuring Chicago classic COOLEY HIGH stars Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Glynn Turman; and Will Niava’s tale of a young Ivorian trumpeter who arrives in Montreal with nothing but the legacy of his father to guide him in JAZZ INFERNAL.


The Black Perspectives program has a rich history, having featured work by such luminaries as Lee Daniels, George Tillman, Jr., Maya Angelou, Ousmane Sembene, Steve McQueen, and Aberrahmane Sissako. The Festival has honored artists including Viola Davis, Forest Whitaker, Sidney Poitier, Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Pam Grier, and the program’s original inspiration, Spike Lee.


The full slate of films and programs presented at the 62nd Chicago International Film Festival will be announced on September 17, 2026. Tickets go on sale to the general public September 24, with Cinema/Chicago members’ pre-sale tickets going on sale September 18. Memberships and passes are now available at www.chicagofilmfestival.com.


For more information, visit https://www.chicagofilmfestival.com.

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