Black Stars Shine Bright: Everyday Alchemy

Join Sisters in Cinema fellows Moya Bailey and India Martin, as they share their latest documentary film projects during BlackStar Film Festival Weekend. Each project centers the everyday magic of Black women and Black queer families’ survival. Attendees will get to view You Just Watch and See (2025) and part of Out of Focus (2025) and listen to a conversation moderated by Aishah Shahidah Simmons with the directors and crew discuss the making of these projects. Lunch will be provided. Masks encouraged. Blurring the boundaries between past and present, Out of Focus is an experimental film series and living archive that honors Black queer families and chosen families through a poetic exploration of memory, love, and kinship. Emerging from a single interview with Director Moya Bailey’s cousin Dollie Alexander, You Just Watch and See chronicles Dollie’s life from girlhood to achieving her twin dreams of becoming a professional woman and traveling the world. Moderatated by Aishah Shahidah Simmons is a survivor-healer, Black feminist lesbian, award-winning filmmaker, writer, and Buddhist mindfulness meditation teacher. Her pioneering cultural works—is a survivor-healer, Black feminist lesbian, award-winning filmmaker, writer, and Buddhist mindfulness meditation teacher. Her pioneering cultural works—NO! The Rape Documentary (2006), a widely acclaimed, award-winning film recognized internationally for its groundbreaking impact, and love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (AK Press, 2019), a 2020 Lambda Literary Award–winning anthology—break silences, illuminate healing paths through trauma, and offer humane visions for addressing the inhumane epidemic of sexual violence. Rooted in activism, spiritual practice, and cultural production, Simmons brings compassionate clarity and brave truth to both her work and her teaching. Since 1995, she has delivered over 400 lectures and facilitated workshops across the U.S. and internationally, served in faculty and artist-in-residence roles, and earned numerous accolades for her transformative contributions. Learn more about Simmons' work: [hidden] Director Bio’s: Moya Bailey - is a Professor at Northwestern University and is the founder of the Digital Apothecary and co-founder of the Black Feminist Health Science Studies Collective. She is the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network and the Board President of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit-based movement media organization that supports an ever-growing network of activists and organizers. She is a co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, 2020) and is the author of Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (New York University Press, 2021). She is an award-winning documentarian after completing the short documentary You Just Watch & See (2025) featuring her late Cousin Dollie and is completing a docuseries Misogynoir in Medicine due out next year. India Martin - is a visual artist and filmmaker. Through art and cultural projects, she creates transformative experiences that challenge dominant narratives—crafting serene visual landscapes and capturing tender, defiant moments of connection. Her current work reimagines visibility by centering memory, preservation, and the creation of still and moving images that honor Black queer families and chosen families in moments of joy and ease. Rooted in liberation, India’s purpose is to confront erasure and help shape a future where queer people of color are unapologetically seen, and their stories are recognized as vital to our collective imagination. More Info below.