Filmmakers, directors, actors and partners gathered in Union Market’s Ron David Studio and Café on June 4 for the opening reception of the LightReel Film Festival, a multicultural celebration held June 3-6 featuring a series of independent films, documentaries, director panels and animations all with the goal of highlighting D.C. culture, directors and business.
Tim Gordon, the executive director of the LightReel Festival, and a film critic of 30 plus years, has always wanted a film festival of his own. The opportunity for Gordon to create a new festival in Washington, D.C., arose less than 10 years ago and since then the LightReel Film Festival has hosted more than 35 filmmakers and worked with 20 sponsors and partners.
The festival was presented by the Foundation for the Augmentation of African Americans in Film (FAAAF), a nonprofit organization focused on educating, sponsoring and celebrating BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) filmmakers.
“I have a vision for what I can bring to Washington, D.C., and I think not just about having a world-class festival but having a world class festival that spotlights the many contributions of filmmakers here in D.C.,” Gordon told The Informer. “Our matrix this year, District to the Diaspora, speaks to the idea that even though we have people coming in from over 20 countries at this year’s festival, our focus is still about our home-grown filmmakers and the work they are producing to amplify our city.”
Sponsors and partners of LightReel included the Union Market District, Angelika Pop Up Shop Theatre, DC Commission of Arts & Humanities, Lionsgate and DC Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD).
Rosemary Suggs Evans, director of DSLBD gave a speech at LightReel’s opening reception, praising the contributions of the festival to local businesses.
“It’s so important for festivals like this to be hosted here in the District and for us to support those artists, creatives and organizations that want to highlight what D.C. is, who we are and what we are truly about,” Suggs Evans said.
The sense of homegrown talent was illustrated through many of the films and documentaries showcasing cast, crews and directors, such as Noah Greene, who are based in D.C.
A recent Howard University graduate, Greene is the director of the short film “Sense,” set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where water is the last resource. It follows the journey of a blind swordsman with heightened senses who must protect a desperate young man from a violent faction. Greene’s film was originally selected for Howard University Thesis Showcase before being invited to show in the LightReel Festival and receiving glowing reviews from the audience.
“What I want people to get out of my film is to stay together and be together in trying times,” Greene said, “because my film is set in a post-apocalyptic world where anything could happen.”
Afro Past, Present and Future
The festival cultivated a range of documentaries, thrillers, and Afro-futuristic films that showed the future of filmmaking as more BIPOC people are entering the field, while also giving audiences a chance to learn stories across the African diaspora..
The film “Memory of Princess Mumbi” produced by Damien Hauser, utilized AI tools, paintings and ancient African kingdoms as source material to create a story focusing on the importance of human creativity outside of current technologic advancements. The film follows an African princess and actress-in-training on her journey of filmmaking, love, mental health and finding the beauty in smaller things.
“With ‘Memory of Princess Mumbi,’ Swiss-Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser delivers a dazzling film set in the future but pertinent to today,” Amber Love wrote in a description for the film for SF Film Festival in May. “Against an Afrofuturistic backdrop, this visually esoteric, luscious, and layered sci-fi mockumentary both celebrates and critiques AI while adding a dollop of romance in its depiction of the love triangle between two artists and a prince.”
D.C. native Thomas Walter Booker contributes his own film “Absent” which follows a D.C. teen looking for a new normal with the help of his English teacher after falling into depression due to his father’s long-distance move. Booker, who writes, produces and plays one of the leads in “Absent,” told TheInformer that the story is based on his own relationship with his father.
“This is one of the most authentic film festivals in D.C. in the sense of how it brings, regardless of status, it incorporates all natives and all walks of life,” he said. “ It feels more grassroot level in how it connects with filmmakers and I really appreciate that.” Dr. Ivan Walks, the chairman of the board for FAAAF, who attended LightReel’s opening reception , was especially excited for the award-winning documentary “The Eyes of Ghana’”on Thursday evening. It featured Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah’s personal cinematographer, Chris Hesse and acclaimed filmmaker Anita Afonu. The documentary dives into the 93-year-old Hesse’ legacy, Nkrumah contributions to Ghana’s film industry and the renovation of Accra’s oldest movie theater.
“[‘The Eyes of Ghana’ is doing] this whole connecting of people that look like me and us in America to people that look like me and us in Africa and other parts of the world… through a love of storytelling,” Walks told The Informer about the film, which won the Audience Award during the festival’s Black Butterfly Awards on June 5. “I think this is one of the things LightReel can really bring to D.C. in a way that has not ordinarily been brought here before.”
LightReel Film Festival closed its 2026 screenings with the documentary“W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause,” produced, written and directed by Rita Coburn. Featuring readings by Common, Courtney B. Vance, and Jeffrey Wright, this piece examines the writing career, political activism and evolving philosophies of one of America’s most acclaimed Black intellectuals and film’s title character. Audiences praised the film for its examination of Dubois’ life beyond the average history textbook.
For Coburn, the film was far more about entertainment for audiences, but a call to action.
“Here’s what I would love for Black people to do. I would love for them not to just view this film as a documentary and get up and go ‘I know a little bit more about DuBois,’” she said. “I would like for them to go online and read ‘The Souls of Black Folk.’”
Plus Coburn’s charge goes beyond watching the film and reading the civil rights leader’s works.
“I would like them to understand how powerful we are as a people, how important our history is and to teach it to one another and lift our shoulders a little bit,” Coburn told The Washington Informer. “I would like woke white people to continue protesting in the streets because it is safer for them to do so and it is something they should do.”
