by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
April 16, 2025
Since its launch in 2015, BPM has channeled over $1.8 million to assist 23 compelling movie and immersive tasks by way of the PitchBLACK competitors.
Black Public Media (BPM), a nationwide nonprofit championing Black content material creators, introduced Tuesday that its PitchBLACK Discussion board will award over $2 million in funding for movie and immersive tasks this 12 months. The discussion board, acknowledged as the most important pitch competitors in the US for unbiased filmmakers and inventive technologists targeted on Black narratives, will convene in Harlem April 30 from 9 a.m. to five p.m.
The end result of the occasion would be the PitchBLACK Awards Could 1 at 7 p.m., the place manufacturing and distribution awards shall be introduced. The night will even characteristic the presentation of the celebrated BPM Trailblazer Award to Lillian E. Benson, ACE (American Cinema Editors), a celebrated determine identified for her Emmy-nominated work on groundbreaking tasks comparable to Eyes on the Prize II, Showtime’s Soul Meals, NBC’s Chicago Med, and OWN’s Greenleaf.
Sponsored by business giants Netflix and PBS, the PitchBLACK Discussion board will present a platform for proficient creatives to pitch their revolutionary tasks earlier than a distinguished viewers of public media representatives, industrial tv community executives, distributors, and funders nationwide.
Since its launch in 2015, BPM has channeled over $1.8 million to assist 23 compelling movie and immersive tasks by way of the PitchBLACK competitors. This 12 months marks a big milestone because the discussion board strikes to The Apollo Phases on the Victoria in Harlem, the colourful New York Metropolis neighborhood that serves as BPM’s base. With BPM anticipating awarding greater than $225,000 in funding to tasks this 12 months alone, the group is poised to interrupt the $2 million mark in whole funding awarded by way of the PitchBLACK program since its inception.
“We’re completely happy to host PitchBLACK within the inventive and cultural mecca of Harlem this 12 months,” stated Leslie Fields-Cruz, govt director of BPM. “PitchBLACK at all times affords an exquisite array of tasks presenting distinctive mixes of leisure, ingenuity and craftsmanship. We sit up for what this 12 months’s creatives have in retailer for audiences.”
Promoting futurist Tameka Kee will return to average the PitchBLACK Discussion board for this 12 months’s occasion. The movie phase, scheduled from 9 a.m. to midday, will characteristic pitches for documentary tasks from groups together with Sidney Fussell and Jennifer Holness, Karen Hayes, Arlieta Corridor and Brittany Alsot, Chelsi Bullard and Jacqueline Olive, and Caron Creighton. The immersive venture opponents – Anatola Araba, Aya, Steven Christian, Jeremy Kamal, Joel Mack, and Rasheed Peters — will take the stage from 1 p.m. to three:30 p.m., presenting tasks that incorporate cutting-edge applied sciences comparable to synthetic intelligence (AI), augmented actuality, 3D animation, and interactive video games.
The PitchBLACK Discussion board winners shall be introduced on the Could 1 awards ceremony at 7 p.m.
Hosted by comic Jamie Roberts, the awards ceremony will embrace an insightful dialog with Trailblazer Award recipient Lillian E. Benson, moderated by NPR host Brittany Luse of the acclaimed podcast It’s Been a Minute.
The Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship winner, a prestigious award named in honor of BPM’s late director of digital initiatives and designed to assist a proficient under-30 inventive, will even be introduced through the awards ceremony. The night will culminate in a vigorous after-party.
Tickets for the PitchBLACK Awards are priced at $300 and might be bought by way of the Apollo Theater’s web site.
Including one other dimension to celebrating Benson’s impactful profession, this 12 months’s BPM Trailblazer Movie Retrospective will characteristic a curated assortment of works edited by the esteemed honoree. These movies shall be obtainable totally free streaming on blackpublicmedia.org between April 28 and Could 12, providing a wider viewers the chance to expertise Benson’s masterful enhancing. The featured movies embrace Past the Steps; Maya Angelou: And Nonetheless I Rise; New World, New Types; and The Style of Dust; and two pivotal elements of Eyes on the Prize II: The Promised Land (Half 10) and Keys to the Kingdom (Half 13).
PitchBLACK’s vital impression on the panorama of Black media is made attainable by way of the beneficiant assist of key sponsors Netflix and PBS, with extra funding offered by the Company for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Basis, Acton Household Giving, Agog LLC, New York Group Belief, Rockefeller Household Fund, New York Metropolis Division of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Basis, Sonder Basis, and the New York Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure.
For these curious about studying extra concerning the revolutionary tasks competing on this 12 months’s PitchBLACK Discussion board, detailed info might be discovered right here. Additional particulars about Black Public Media and its initiatives can be found at blackpublicmedia.org. Highlights and updates from PitchBLACK might be adopted on Instagram, Fb, and TikTok at @blackpublicmedia.
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