{"id":488702,"date":"2026-10-08T02:20:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488702\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T02:20:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:20:59","slug":"oak-park-black-film-festival-returns-to-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488702\/","title":{"rendered":"Oak Park Black Film Festival returns to Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cecil<\/a>SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n

The Oak Park Black Film Festival is back in Sacramento for its fifth year, offering screenings and discussions at the Guild Theatre through Sunday. <\/p>\n

The festival, held in a neighborhood tied to the story of Sacramento’s Black community, provides a platform for Black filmmakers from across the country and the world to showcase their work.<\/p>\n

Attendees can watch feature films, documentaries, and short films, as well as meet directors, producers, and actors involved in the projects. <\/p>\n

“It’s so important to share Black stories because everyone wants to see themselves in a story,” said Gloria Respress-Churchwell.<\/p>\n

Respress-Churchwell is a director who came all the way from Boston to screen her film Limitless: The Dr. Chester Pierce Story.<\/p>\n

It’s a documentary about the life of Dr. Chester Pierce. He was the first African American to play intercollegiate football against a white team in a former Confederate state while attending Harvard.<\/p>\n

The film also explores his work as a psychiatrist that led him to Antarctica to carry out research, to NASA to help select astronauts, and to Sesame Street to help educate a new generation of preschoolers. <\/p>\n

Panel discussions are also part of the event, giving everyone a chance to learn more about what it took to bring these projects to life. For the filmmakers, the festival also offers a space to share stories that often go untold. <\/p>\n

“I think it’s important and incumbent upon ourselves to make space and room for each other to share our work,” said Ethan Lewis.<\/p>\n

Lewis is the head of nonfiction and sports for Higher Ground, the production company owned by Barack and Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the first screening was their award-winning documentary “The Eyes of Ghana,” which follows 93-year-old Ghanaian filmmaker Chris Hesse, the former personal cameraman to Kwame Nkrumah, who was the first president of Ghana. <\/p>\n

The festival runs through Sunday with tickets available online.<\/a><\/p>\n

See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 The Oak Park Black Film Festival is back in Sacramento for its fifth year, offering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[190805,190806,5454,1924,6903,190807,16497,190808,74030,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-488702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-black-directors","tag-black-filmakers","tag-directors","tag-film","tag-film-festival","tag-higher-ground-productions","tag-oak-park","tag-oak-park-film-festival","tag-obamas","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}