Black Film Project and Film Studies Fellowships Established at Harvard University

The department of art, film, and visual studies and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University have partnered to create a new initiative, the Black Film Project, to support narrative and documentary films centering on Black history and culture. The project will be overseen by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center. The Black Film Project will give out two annual prizes funded by outside partners. The Smithsonian Institution will establish the Henry Hampton Prize for Documentary Filmmaking on Black History and Culture, which will award $200,000 to an independent filmmaker of a late-stage documentary film exploring themes of Black culture. Philanthropist Eric G. Johnson has founded the Baldwin Richardson Food Prize which will provide a filmmaker of any genre a $50,000 prize to complete their project. Additionally, the Black Film project includes three annual paid fellowships in the Hutchins Center’s W.E.B Du Bois Research Institute Fellowship Program. The fellows will have access to Harvard’s research and filmmaking resources to create and present their films to the public. They will have joint appointments in the department of art, film, and visual studies and the Film Study Center,...