Award–winning director Luchina Fisher’s Hiding in Plain Sight, a dynamic examination of the innovative Black, queer musicians, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard, who have driven forward mainstream culture despite their full selves being acknowledged, was the big winner at Black Public Media‘s PitchBLACK Awards. The documentary was awarded $150,000 in production funding. Sponsored by Netflix and Andscape, PitchBLACK is the nation’s largest pitching session for Black stories (film and immersive media).
Award-wining documentary filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith were presented the BPM Trailblazer Award at the event by BPM Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz.
To further celebrate Nelson and Smith’s remarkable accomplishments, BPM is presenting a special online retrospective of their films, running through Sunday, May 10. Films available for streaming include: We Want the Funk! (2025), The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015), Freedom Riders (2010), Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple (2007), A Place of Our Own (2004), The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind (2000), The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (1999) and Two Dollars and a Dream (1989). Register for on-demand viewing here.
Amirah Adem, a Los Angeles-based director and producer, was selected as the 2026 Nonso Christian Ugbode Digital Media Award recipient. Named after BPM’s late director of digital initiatives, the award honors a talented under-30 creative technologist working in new media. Adem is a graduate of the University of Southern California (MFA) and Pomona College (BA) whose films center Black leads in untold stories. Her work has been student BAFTA longlisted, shown at the American Black Film Festival and supported by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation. Her debut short, “Convertible,” premiered at the Director’s Guild of America Theater and was shown at the Essence Festival of Culture.
Silent, by Nile Price, a cinematic musing on the psychic effects of our endlessly plugged-in world — was named the 2026 AfroPoP Digital Shorts Viewers’ Choice winner. The film appears on BPM’s YouTube channel.
Founded in 1979, BPM funds quality film and immersive stories, develops media makers, and produces and distributes original content.
To support BPM’s Black Stories Production Fund, visit blackpublicmedia.org. Follow the organization at @blackpublicmedia on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
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