19th Annual ImageNation Outdoors Festival
6:30pm, August 13th to October 8th in Harlem!
FREE! Schedule is subject to change, please check for updates. Films begin at sundown.
Fall showings will start earlier as it gets later. Please arrive by 6:30pm, DJ's will spin until it's time to start the film.
Masks are recommended. Social distancing is required. COVID-19 safety protocols may change according to government mandates.
Click here to view Celebrating Chadwick and Cicely.
UPDATED 2021 SCHEDULE
Friday, August 13th | Co-presented by the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
St. Nicholas Park (135th Street & St. Nicholas Ave.) | RSVP
Talkback at 7PM, with film to follow.
NYC Premiere of Red Pill
Dir. Tonya Pinkins, 87 min, 2021, USA
From the mind of Tony award-winning actress, Tonya Pinkins comes a progressive dystopia nightmare. Shot by cinematographer John Hudak Jr., Red Pill is an award-winning, visually stunning, campy metaphor for all our fears and a reminder that there are worse things than death. Halloween weekend of the 2020 election, six old friends ride into red country armed with humor and naiveté. When they meet an immovable force, their plans are thwarted and their fight to win the election becomes a fight for their lives.
Co-presented the Historic Harlem Parks and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
MUSIC: DJ Greg Gee
In attendance: Tonya Pinks, and cast members Adesola Osakalumi, Kathryn Erbe, Luba Mason and Jake O’Flaherty.
Friday, August 13th | Co-presented by East River Plaza and Harlem Week!
East River Plaza, Garage Rooftop, 117th Street and the East River | RSVP
In the HeightsCourtesy of Warner Media, directed by Jon M. Chu, 143 min, 2021, USA
A film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical in which Usnavi, a sympathetic New York bodega owner, saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.
ABOUT THE FILM
Directed by Stanley Nelson, 115min.
Tracing more than 150 years of African American men and women, from those bound by bondage to moguls at the top of multibillion-dollar empires, Boss: The Black Experience in Business, seeks to claim their place in the story of American entrepreneurship.
MUSIC: DJ Cool Gee
Saturday, August 14th | Co-presented by Harlem Week
St. Nicholas Park, NYC | RSVP
Marvel’s Blade Anime (episodes 1-3),
directed by Mitsuyuki Masuhara, 25 min. ea, 2011, Japan
“Moses Pie”, directed by Safiya Songhai, 10 min, 2015, USA
Starring Harold Perrineau and Akio Ôtsuka as Blade, the Legendary half-vampire, half-human vampire hunter. In this series, Blade is tracking Deacon Frost, a very powerful and influential vampire who killed his mother and who heads Existence, a secretive vampire organization that operates in Southeast Asia. And Safiya Songhai’s short documentary “Moses Pie'' features Chadwick Boseman’s work with children at the Schomburg Center.
MUSIC: DJ Cool Gee
Friday, August 27th – Co-presented by the Frederick Douglass Blvd. Association
Frederick Douglass Blvd, Street TBA | RSVP
Kiki directed by Sara Jordenö, 94 min., 2016, USA/Sweden
"Dusk, Mask, Soul" directed by Sheila Prevost, 7min., USA, HCCI Filmmaker Training Program Alumni
Considered an unofficial sequel to the influential 1990 film Paris Is Burning, Kiki profiles several young LGBT people of colour participating in contemporary LGBT African American ball culture. Preceded by the short film “Dust, Mask, Soul directed by Harlem-based artist Sheila Prevost.”
Sunday, August 29th - Co-presented by Rejoice/Resist Festival & Block Party
8PM, West 124th Street between St. Nicholas and Morningside Aves, NYC | RSVP
Rejoice/Resist Festival (Rejoice!)
A new partnership with the Rejoice/Resist Festival will feature a sidebar including a block party with an outdoor art exhibit, vendors, a panel discussion on activism, and screenings from the RIZZLE/RejoiceResist film collection.
MUSIC: DJ Greg Gee
NEW DATE: Friday, September 3rd
Presented by Bronx Terminal Market Films on the Rooftop
Bronx Terminal Market, Garage Rooftop| RSVP
Dancing & Giveaways 6:30PM, Film 7:30PM on digital screen!
Raya and the last Dragon
Dir. Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Paul Briggs, John Ripa, 107 min., USA
“Hair Love”, directed by Matthew Cherry, 7 min, 2019, USA
Raya and the Last Dragon journeys to a realm known as Kumandra. On this re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon. Raya is preceded by the 2019 Academy Award winning short film “Hair Love,” wherein A father tries to do his daughter's hair for the first time.
MUSIC: DJ Ivan Soto aka DJ Big Ive
Friday, September 3rd – Co-presented by the Frederick Douglass Blvd. Association
Frederick Douglass Blvd, Street TBA | RSVP
Harriet
Dir. Kasi Lemmons, 125 min., 2019, USA
The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes, whose courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
MUSIC: DJ Cool Gee
Friday, September 10th – Co-presented by the Frederick Douglass Blvd. Association
Frederick Douglass Blvd, Btwn. 119th & 120th Streets | RSVP
System K
Directed by Renaud Barret, 2019, 94 min, France/Democratic Republic of the Congo
"Dusk, Mask, Soul" directed by Sheila Prevost, 7min., USA (HCCI Filmmaker Program Alum)
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a vast, chaotic mega-city of 12 million. Water is privatized and the electric grid is capricious. Here, street artists’ performances are wildly creative, angry, irreverent, often shocking. With names like Kong Astronaute, Strombo, and Kill Bill, they masterfully repurpose urban detritus (computer parts, TV sets, bullet shells, machetes) and work with fire and paint, wax and blood — to critique government corruption, Western exploitation (their nation was literally once the private property of Belgium’s King Léopold II), and entrenched poverty. SYSTEM K reveals a vibrant, raw, politically astute world of performance art the likes of which exist nowhere else on earth. Preceded by the short film "Dusk, Mask, Soul" directed by Sheila Prevost, 7min., USA, produced in the HCCI Filmmaker Training Program.
MUSIC: DJ Cool Gee
NEW DATE: Friday, September 24th - Co-presented by East River Plaza
East River Plaza | RSVP
Kids Night Out! featuring The Wiz!,
Directed by Sidney Lumet, 134 min., 1978, USA
"Adventures of Booga and Mommy", Episode 1, directed by Jermaine Smith, 3 min, USA
Starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Mabel King, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor and many others The Wiz is a musical retelling of L. Frank Baum's children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) in the context of contemporary African-American culture. The Wiz will be preceded by the short film “Adventures of Booga and Mommy.” This Kids’ Night Out program will also offer games, face-painting, and giveaways provided by East River Plaza.
MUSIC: DJ M. Forde
NEW DATE: Friday, October 8
Jackie Robinson Park - RSVP
Co-presented by Black Public Media & Rejoice/Resist Festival
The Neutral Ground
Directed by CJ Hunt, 90 min., 2021, USA
"Dead Beat" dir. by Ashley Denise Robinson, 3min., USA (HCCI Filmmaker Program Alum)
Black Public Media will co-present PBS’s award winning film The Neutral Ground. This official Tribeca Film Festival selection is directed by comedian CJ Hunt and executive produced by comedian Roy Wood, Jr. and explores memory, monuments and America’s confederate past. In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council’s vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.
MUSIC: DJ Cool Gee