Justice in Motion: Sitelines BLM Film Festival
The UR Student Center for Equity and Inclusion, in partnership with Modlin Center for the Arts, hosts Justice in Motion: Sitelines BLM Film Festival, a powerful series of short films written by and featuring three local Black filmmakers. The films tell stories about Richmond and its historic sites through the lens of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. Commissioned and produced by Richmond-based Cadence Theatre Company, the films reflect the unique voices and perspectives of the filmmakers to spark conversations about racial justice, purposeful action, and the challenges of change.
The films will be followed by a post-show Q&A with the writers and directors. A key component of the festival is the Welcome Table discussion, a casual opportunity for participants to connect and talk with each other about the films and their experiences. The facilitated discussion will include a light lunch. This event is free and open to the public, and tickets are required.
Program Schedule
12:00 pm Screening
Still Fighting (2021)
Break (2021)
Bleach (2021)
12:30 pm Q&A with screenwriters Brittany Fisher, Margarette Joyner, and dl Hopkins
1:00 pm Welcome Table Discussion facilitated by Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green, W&M Professor of Theatre and Africana Studies.
Presented by:
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Still Fighting Still Fighting stretches across generations to answer the question: have we really made any progress? After centuries of resistance — through slave revolts, the Civil Rights Movement, and waves of Black Lives Matter — the question remains. Still Fighting speaks to the frustrations and fatigue of young, Black individuals as they continue the struggle to end racial injustice in this country. The work also acknowledges the sacrifices made by ancestors to ensure that the fight can continue today. Within the site-specific context of the Virginia War Memorial, Still Fighting explores the parallels between the Black Lives Matter Movement and previous conflicts—such as the Vietnam War—on the backdrop of a space of memory. |
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Margarette Joyner (she/her) is a Director, Actress, Poet, Singer, and Costume Designer based in Charlotte, NC. Joyner is a Visiting Professor of Costume Design at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She graduated with a MFA from VCU after receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of South Alabama. Joyner founded The Heritage Ensemble Theatre Company in 2012 and served as the Artistic/Executive Director for 10 years. She has taught theatre and served as an academic advisor at the university level for six years. In addition to writing several stage plays, Joyner recently co-authored a book, When I Kill Him, Jesus Can Have Him , released through Pecan Tree Publishing. She also served as an Actor Interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, where she not only performed but wrote several of her own solo programs. She was honored to give voice to those of the enslaved community of Williamsburg's 18th Century. Joyner has designed costumes and props for Cadence Cinema Film & TV’s "Still Fighting," "Bleach," "Break," and "Bloodlines". Of all these accomplishments, her greatest is to have raised a daughter who is a loving human being and her best friend. Says Joyner of her talents, "I am humbled by the fact that God has chosen me to represent His work in so many ways." |
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Break Jackson Ward recalls the horrors of a weekend outing to amused coworkers and entertained onlookers. The story plays out in real time in front of the audience as Jackson narrates the event, dinner at a friend’s house, and discovering that the house sits on a plantation. Filmed at the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue and the Historic Westover Plantation, Break explores differing perspectives of the same situation, discovering the communication gap between worlds and the deep-rooted need for reconciliation of our collective truth. |
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dl Hopkins is an award-winning actor, poet, and the former Artistic Director of the African American Repertory Theatre of Virginia. Hopkins is a founder of the Southern Revolutionist Literary Guild (SRLG), a collective of poets and spoken word artists. While serving on the Board of Directors of James River Writers, Hopkins created the Just Poetry Slam , Richmond’s first and longest-running poetry slam. Hopkins is a founding member of the Jazz Actors Theatre established by his mentor, Ernie McClintock, founder of Harlem’s Afro-American Studio for Acting and Speech and the 127th Street Repertory Ensemble. |
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Bleach Bleach is set during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and filmed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art’s Rumors of War statue and at Richmond’s African Burial Ground. Three young people in a poetry colelctive play a game that opens the door for conversation about how to stay safe when racial tension is again on the rise in the former capital of the Confederacy. Bleach is simultaneously a film about the erasure of history and a memorialization to the beauty and humanity of Black people everywhere. |
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Brittany Fisher (she/her) is a NYC-based playwright with roots in Richmond, VA, and graduate of Juliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. Her play How to Bruise Gracefully won the 2021 Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award and was recognized by the Rosa Parks Award and Paula Vogel Award. Her play Your Regularly Scheduled Programming was a 2022 O’Neill NPC selection and recognized by the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Award. She was a 2018-20 Pipeline New Works Playwriting Fellow, and her work has been featured at and developed with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, National Black Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Alliance Theatre's Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, Cadence Theatre Company and Virginia Repertory Theatre. She received her B.A. from James Madison University. |
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Omiyẹmi (Artisia) Green Sitelines BLM Program Director Omiyẹmi (she/her) is the originator and Program Director for Cadence Sitelines BLM and had the honor of directing Brittany Fisher’s Bleach , one of Cadence’s award-winning commissions for its 2023 Sitelines BLM Film Festival. As noted in Bleach being “the first black anything” makes clear that progress is being made slowly. However, progress is still happening and Omiyẹmi does not take this distinction in her professional profile lightly. Since the inception of the William & Mary Theatre & Dance department in 1926 and the hiring of its first Black faculty member sixty years later, Omiyẹmi is the first Black woman to achieve tenure and promotion to full professor in Theatre. She also holds posts as the editor-in-chief of the Black Theatre Review, the VP for Professional Development for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and a W&M Provost Faculty Fellow. A director and dramaturg Omiyẹmi’s work has been seen in places such as the Afrikana Independent Film Festival (Richmond, VA), Southern Illinois University (Carbondale), Illinois Wesleyan University, eta Creative Arts Foundation, and Cadence. Her research is published in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre, the Journal of American Folklore, Continuum, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society Journal Peer Review Section, the August Wilson Journal, August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays (McFarland), and African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs (Greenwood). She has forthcoming work in Theater Magazine, Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Radical Imaginings for Just Communities (Routledge), and August Wilson in Context (Cambridge University Press). Since graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003 (MFA, Theatre Education) she has held teaching positions with Morgan State University, Chicago State University, and Purdue University’s Black Cultural Research Center. Omiyẹmi’s accomplishments include two William & Mary NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Faculty Support, a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence, a W. Taylor Reveley, III Interdisciplinary Faculty Fellowship, a WMSURE Mellon Faculty Fellowship, an Arts & Sciences Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, and a term professorship as the Sharpe Professor of Civic Renewal and Entrepreneurship. She has earned $230K in external and internal awards for her teaching and research, and creative work, has been recognized by the Black Theatre Alliance Awards, and supported with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, CultureWorks, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. |
About Sitelines BLM Film Festival
Sitelines BLM Film Festival is produced by Cadence Theatre Company to bring contemporary works to public spaces and cultural venues throughout Richmond. This innovative program was made possible through an Innovative Priority Grant from CultureWorks’ Grants Program, which received support from several partners including Altria, The City of Richmond, The Tomato Fund, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. By offering performances in public spaces, Sitelines BLM Film Festival aims to increase community participation in live theater and encourage people to rediscover and engage with our city spaces. Sitelines BLM Film Festival is also focused on building connections, promoting inclusion, and encouraging dialogue within our community.
