Spectra Clients at This Year’s 32nd Annual Pan African Film Festival
The Pan African Film + Arts Festival (PAFF) is the largest and most renown international black film festival in America, now in its 32nd year and showcasing over 175 feature length & short films celebrating black filmmakers and creators alike. We are proud to highlight two composers from our roster whose work will be featured at the festival this year:
Chocolate Milk: The Documentary
EmmoLei Sankofa (sher/her) has scored the documentary Chocolate Milk, directed by Elizabeth Gray Bayne, a social impact filmmaker with a focus in public health. Nominated for Best First Feature Documentary, the film follows three African American women—a new mother, a WIC lactation educator, and a homebirth midwife—and asks the question of why more African American women are not breastfeeding and indeed how communities can better support Black birthing families. Previously an official selection at the 2023 Tallgrass Film Festival, Chocolate Milk will be screening twice at PAFF: February 8th and February 14th.
KEMBA
Stanley A. Smith (he/him) has created the original score for the MPI Original Films feature—KEMBA. Based on a true story of an unfair sentence, an unjust system and unbreakable courage, this long-awaited Kemba Smith story is directed by Kelley Kali and stars Nesta Cooper, Sean Patrick Thomas & Michelle Hurd. Kemba world premiered at the 2023 Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival, where it won “Award of Merit - Best True Story Depiction”, and has since then made its rounds in several festivals, including the Black Harvest Film Festival and the St. Louis International Film Festival, where it won “Audience Choice Award.” It will be screening at PAFF on February 13th, followed by its streaming premiere on February 22nd on BET+.
For more information about the PAFF schedule and tickets, click here for Chocolate Milk and here for Kemba. We’re very excited for both films and look forward to their reception at the festival in the upcoming days!