Harvard Launches Black Film Project With 2 Prizes To Support Independent Filmmakers

Harvard announced the launch of the Black Film Project on Thursday, a new initiative within the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research to support filmmakers with a focus on Black history and culture.

The new initiative, led by University Professor and Hutchins Center Director Henry Louis Gates Jr., will be housed at the Hutchins Center in collaboration with Harvard’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, according to an article published in the Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication.

Art, Film, and Visual Studies professor Robb Moss said in an interview that the Black Film Project is “an extraordinary opportunity for the Harvard community to welcome a group of talented filmmakers who are exploring the breadth and depth of the Black experience in the world.”

Jacqueline Glover, a former senior vice president of HBO Documentary Films, will serve as the project’s inaugural executive director.

Glover said in an interview on Monday that she hopes the project “will serve as a place for Black storytelling through film.”

The project, described by the Gazette as the “brainchild of Gates,” launched with two awards designed to financially support filmmakers pursuing their projects.

The Henry Hampton Prize for Documentary Filmmaking on Black History and Culture, named for the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker behind “Eyes on the Prize,” will award an annual $200,000 prize to filmmakers “exploring themes about African Americans, Africans, or Afro-Latin Americans,” according to the Gazette.

A second $50,000 prize, funded by philanthropist Eric G. Johnson, will be offered to filmmakers of any genre. Prize winners will be selected by a national jury and internal review committee, organized by Harvard and the Smithsonian.

“Prizes for filmmakers are always welcomed,” Glover said. “It’s not easy to get a documentary film made and resources are always a challenge.”

The Black Film Project will also establish three paid fellowships as part of the Hutchins’ W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellowship Program. Equipped with joint appointments with AFVS and the Film Study Center, the fellows will be provided with exhibition opportunities to present their films in Boston and New York.

In the interview, Moss said that filmmaking is a unique form of art that can change how viewers understand the film’s subject matter.

“Film has an opportunity to create a set of experiences and insights and observations and exposure that can enter you in a powerful way that affects you, affects how you think about things — how you regard the world,” Moss said.

—Staff writer Samantha D. Wu can be reached at samantha.wu@thecrimson.com.