Announcing the 2026 Ann Arbor Black Film Festival Award Winners
After much deliberation, we are thrilled to announce the award winners of the 2026 Ann Arbor Black Film Festival!
Our judges gave generous time and careful thought to every film, and their dedication helped us honor the standout work in a lineup full of remarkable storytelling. We thank each of them for their service to this festival and to the filmmakers.
Join us in celebrating our winners on social media, and dive deeper into their work to discover the voices shaping Black cinema today.
Audience Selection
Nuisance
Writer/Director: Jouel Truesdell Anthony
Producer: Michael Truesdell Anthony
https://www.a2bff.org/news/cbsdetroit2026
Tecumseh, MI
13 minutes 45 seconds
21-year-old Derek has been raised at the cross-cultural intersection of rural American life and modern Black culture. When his younger brother, Bowie, turns 10, Derek is tasked with taking the newest young hunter in their family on his first hunting trip. Bowie, a multi-racial child with his own unique perspective, tries to make sense of the world through his sketch journal. Bowie hopes they will reconnect through their shared love of nature, but he becomes subjected to the very expectations which have confined Derek.
Best in Show
To Move In My Mother's Prayers
Writer/Director: Diop Russell
Producer: Leah Hill
https://www.instagram.com/tmimmpfilm/
Detroit, MI
11 minutes 32 seconds
A rebellious, nonbinary teenager wrestles with their hardworking single mom over joining the Legacy League—an elite organization for high school girls.
Best Performance
Pericarp
Actor: Gelilla Mekonnen as "Sora"
Writer/Director: Ryan Henry Knight
Producer: Isis Wells
Alexandria, VA
37 minutes 5 seconds
PERICARP was born out of a need to make something honest... a film without fear. It became an act of release. A way to surrender control, confront fear, and turn the mess of being human into something sacred. What began as an act of honesty between two friends became a film about how fear mutates truth, and how silence transforms the body.
Best Documentary
Best in Class: Blenda J. Wilson, Jon Onye Lockard, and the Portrait that Connected Them
Writer/Director: Rick Morrone
Producer: Jennifer Proctor
Dearborn, MI
28 minutes
A portrait of the University of Michigan's first Black woman chancellor, Blenda J. Wilson and the artist, Jon Onye Lockard, who painted it.
Best Editing
The Missing Piece
Editor: Tiago Barros
Writer/Director: Emanuel Fidalgo
Producer: Cliff Noonan
https://www.instagram.com/themissingpiece_short/
Boston, MA
21 minutes 58 seconds
Clarence tries to recreate his late mother's signature dish from a recipe she left him, but the last ingredient is an illegible smudge. Drifting through dual crises of grief and identity, he meets Emi, a bodega store owner insistent on helping with the dish but focused on mending his spirit.
Best Animation
Cogito ergo sum
Producer/Writer/Director: AHMED TAHSIN SHAMS
https://www.ahmedtahsinshams.com/
Bloomington, IN
6 minutes
"Cinema, to me, is not only about telling a story—it’s about planting an idea, like an acorn in the soil of the mind. Some ideas take root, some vanish in the wind. But the patient ones, the quiet ones, grow into forests."
Best Experimental Film
The Sea
Producer/Director: Son Roberts
Writer: Frank Francis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXaStddAnc
Toronto, CAN
10 minutes
The Sea is a subversive film about the legacy of lies surrounding the human journey. And most particularly, the journey of African men, women and children abducted and enslaved by imperialist profiteers and their collaborators in Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Best Music or Audio Production
Cordão de Prata (Silver String)
Audio Production: Denilson Barbosa
Writer/Director: Getulio Ribeiro
Producer: Louise Teixeira
https://www.instagram.com/filmecordaodeprata
Rio de Janeiro, BRA
20 minutes
Set in 1985 at the end of the military dictatorship in Baixada Fluminense, the story follows Brilhante, a modern-day "captain of the woods" (slaver/tracker), who tortures a young Black captive before delivering a final blow. His cruel plans are interrupted and confronted by the supernatural vengeance of an enslaved spirit and Afro-Brazilian religious forces.
Best Cinematography
I Promise You Paradise
Cinematographer: Mostafa El Kashef
Writer/Director: Morad Mostafa
Producer: Sawsan Yusuf
https://www.semainedelacritique.com/en/directors/morad-mostafa
Cairo, EGY
22 minutes
The place in which I’m telling my story is where I spent my childhood and teenage years; the local neighborhood of “Ain Shams” where many migrated from the countries of the horn of Africa escaping war, political deterioration and starvation, they came seeking work, freedom and peace and settled in Ain shams and turned it into a colony for African migrants in the heart of Cairo, and this neighborhood became a society inside the Egyptian society which is also a suffering society, the outcome was unfulfilling because they didn't find a place for the freedom and peace; they had bigger goals of fleeing all this poverty and unclear future and Egypt turned into a stop before fleeing to Europe.
Honorable Mention
Nothing To See Here: Watts
Director: Emily Avalos, John Coughlin, Celeste Garnica, Meryland Gonzalez, Jaime Gregory, LaWanda Hawkins, Jose Hernandez, Erik Loomis, Neci McKinney, Timothy A. Pearce, Sean Reynolds, Tyrone Riley Jr., Tyrone Riley Sr., Kristina Ripatti, Iris Romero, Qiuana Williams, Cornelius Wills (The Community of Watts)
Producer: Michael Soenen
https://time.com/article/2026/04/21/can-a-documentary-help-end-gang-violence-/
Watts, CA
1 hour 31 minutes
Nothing to See Here: Watts has no outside director.
It was directed by the community of Watts: twenty residents—rival gang members, police officers, students, and victims of violence— who used cameras, held full creative control over their own stories, and had to agree on the final cut. Together they changed their community in hopes to change the world.
