Ixquic, an Indigenous teenager from Guatemala, grows up listening to her mother’s stories about ancestral Mayan beings and the fireflies that once lit the nights of their land. While her mother fights to defend their river from a hydroelectric company threatening their community, Ixquic rejects these stories and believes in the promises of modern progress. But one night, the river turns to blood, and serpents appear in the darkness. Confronted with an ancestral force she cannot escape, Ixquic must face the darkness within her and decide whether to deny her origins or embrace the fire of her identity.

Flashing lights: 21:26-22:00, Four brief moments of subtle laser light effects

Ixquic

Ixquic, an Indigenous teenager, rejects her mother’s fight to protect a threatened river. When the river begins to bleed and ancestral forces awaken, she must reconcile her identity with the legacy she denied in order to defend her territory.

Same Water is a lyrical nonfiction film that weaves memory with archive to examine Black leisure, freedom and exclusion at Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, Florida. Prompted by the filmmaker’s discovery of family home videos from a vacation with their grandparents in the early 1990s, the film situates a trip within a landscape shaped by Jim Crow segregation, inaccessible to her grandparents a generation earlier. Through home movies, archival materials and contemporary interviews, it reflects on the pursuit of rest in spaces structured by racial exclusion, foregrounding Paradise Park, a segregated site preserving Silver Springs as a whites-only destination.

Same Water

Same Water is a lyrical nonfiction film that weaves memory with archive to examine Black leisure, freedom and exclusion at Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, Florida.

A gold rush threatens to break the sacred pulse of the Amazon. At the confluence of the Kanús and Kankaim rivers in northern Peru, the Wampís Nation faces an imminent struggle for its ancestral territory. As the price of gold soars — driven by the global promise of an energy transition — illegal mining spreads, endangering their lives, their autonomy and the fragile balance of their world. Since 2017, the Charip Group, the Wampís Indigenous Guard, has navigated rivers and crossed deep forests to dismantle dredges and mining camps. They have turned over intruders to the authorities and stood firm where many remain silent. Yet the invasion persists. Mining continues to advance, contaminating rivers and sowing violence within the communities. Without effective state support, the Wampís have strengthened their own systems of territorial control — community patrols, environmental monitoring, roadblocks and political advocacy — all guided by tarimat pujut, their principle of living well. This short film emerges from within, carried by the voices of those who dream and resist. Leaders, guardians and knowledge keepers share vivid images of their land and a struggle that is intimate, urgent and profoundly dignified. A story told from the heart of the rainforest, where every action is a way of protecting what remains.

Flashing lights: 09:46-11:40 Flashlights, 12:58 Explosion

Charip: Lightning in the River (Charip: el relámpago del río)

When a new wave of gold mining threatens their ancestral territory in the Peruvian Amazon, the Wampis Nation rises to defend their land, rivers and sovereignty, confronting global extractivism with their own systems of resistance, self-defense and territorial control.

A group of lesbian friends over 50 travel together and, away from the world’s gaze, celebrate their friendship, their desire and their freedom. Over the weekend, they fully experience the richness of a reality they already carry within themselves, strengthening the bonds that unite them.

Communion (Comunhão)

A group of lesbian friends over 50 travel together and, away from the world’s gaze, celebrate their friendship, their desire and their freedom. Over the weekend, they fully experience the richness of a reality they already carry within themselves, strengthening the bonds that unite them.

Aquarius Shorts

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BlackStar Film Festival is an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people from around the world. Produced by BlackStar Projects, the 14th edition of the festival takes place July 31- August 3, 2025, both in-person in Philadelphia and online around the world.

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BlackStar Film Festival an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities globally. 

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