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Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival Announces 2025 Official Selections and Award Nominees

Written by Morehouse College | Aug 29, 2025 3:20:32 PM

The Seventh Annual Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival (MCHRFF) returns this fall with five days of impactful programming, showcasing 55 official selections from around the world. Sixteen of these films are nominated across four award categories that spotlight diverse voices and socially engaged storytelling: Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Documentary Feature, and Student Film. Badges and tickets, along with the full festival schedule, are available at morehousefilmfestival.org

The festival will take place from September 23–27, 2025, on the campus of Morehouse College. This year’s nominated films explore urgent human rights and social justice themes, including systemic racism, gender equity, educational access, historical memory, Indigenous sovereignty, and global resistance movements. Spanning generations and geographies, these compelling stories offer urgent insights and personal narratives that challenge, educate, and inspire.

“At this year’s festival, we’re honoring the fundamental human right to belong—within our families, our communities, and our world,” said Kara Walker, executive director of the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival. “These films don’t just tell stories; they reclaim space, challenge erasure, and affirm the dignity of voices too often left out. Belonging is more than inclusion. It’s justice.”

The following is a list of the 2025 nominated films and their respective categories:

 Documentary Feature

Belonging Beyond Brown | Directed by Nina L. Gilbert, El Sawyer, Jon Kaufman

Belonging Beyond Brown explores the emotional stories of displacement, resilience, and the enduring quest for justice experienced by Black educators and students before and after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Burying The Hatchet - The Tom Quick Story | Directed by Christopher King

Burying the Hatchet: The Tom Quick Story is about how one largely white community, and disenfranchised tribal leaders worked together to reconcile the past and forge a shared path forward based on trust, friendship and an inspiring and healing vision of the future.

The Highest Standard | Directed by Isara Krieger

Hopeful Boston Public School students are given a chance to dramatically alter their paths through an alternative school year. The journey they embark on is longer than they could ever imagine: the goal is to access the promising futures that the most elite education spaces provide, but what will be the cost? As high school seniors, four years later, the students revisit their journeys and reflect on that question.

The Palestine Exception | Directed by Jan Haaken, Jennifer Ruth

As students across the country organize protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, decades-long taboos in academia around criticism of Israel–the “Palestine exception”–are shattered. This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians.

 

Documentary Short

 C.B. | Directed by Funmi Ogunro, Javier Wallace

Claudius 'C.B.' Claiborne broke barriers as Duke’s first Black basketball player—and as an activist, he changed the game both on and off the court.

Citizen: The Jilmar Ramos Gomez Story | Directed by Jose Guadalupe Jimenez Jr.

This short documentary follows the near deportation of U.S.-born Marine and combat veteran Jilmar Ramos Gomez, exposing the failures of a system that nearly expelled him and questioning who gets to define what it means to be American.

Clara's Fruit | Directed by Morgan Mathews

As the year concludes for Mohammed Schools of Atlanta, Principal Khalil reflects on the 90-year legacy of his great-grandmother building the first Muslim private school system in the country.

Oceanbone | Directed by Lani Cupchoy

Across oceans and centuries, Indigenous ancestors remain trapped in museum vaults—stolen, studied, and silenced. Oceanbone is a visually haunting and deeply personal journey into the fight for repatriation, where history, poetry, and activism collide.

 

Narrative Short

 Huey | Directed by Ken Gregory, Dave Mack III

Dr. Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, became a target of federal, state, and local governments for his efforts to liberate Black communities in Oakland and beyond from systemic discrimination.

THE HERO: Keys Vs Carolina Coach | Directed by James Jones

Serving in the Women's Army Corps in 1952 before Rosa Parks' courageous act of defiance, which prompted a landmark Interstate Commerce Commission ruling against segregation under the Interstate Commerce Act, was a significant experience.

Superman Doesn't Steal | Directed by Tamika Lamison

Based on true events, a coming-of-age story is set during the 1970s Atlanta child murders. Through the eyes of 9-year-old Harriet and her brother—obsessed with superheroes—the film explores how a series of traumatic events shatter their innocence and redefine their understanding of heroes, villains, and even Superman.

Thomasville | Directed by Alex Woodruff

A heart-wrenching psychodrama exploring the complex nature of Black legacy in Atlanta. Trapped in a rainswept car, a young man and his ailing father confront their fractured history before it's too late.

 

Student Film

Against A Sharp White Background | Directed by Ashani Williams

An exploration of the effects of integration in education, through the eyes of Zora Neale Hurston. Looking at the good, the bad and the ugly effects on the education and experiences of black students.

Emascipation | Directed by Tré Hazelwood, Exodia Demosthene

Kelsey Anderson, 26, wakes up in a facility for Black men grappling with toxic masculinity. As he undergoes treatment, he's forced to confront his beliefs about manhood and realizes that patriarchy and misogyny have shaped—rather than defined—his identity.

StarChild | Directed by Miya Scaggs

In 2026, humanity is trapped between two grim choices: digitization or suffering on Earth. The story follows The Alchemist, a scatterbrained scientist who, before losing his m

emory, created "MaestroVille," a virtual safe haven designed to guide him back to the truth.

While They Are Gone | Directed by Directors: Kyra Mueller and Abigail Rees

While They Are Gone is an exploration of the Prison System through the lens of the partners of incarcerated individuals.

 

The daily schedule for the festival, along with the presenting sponsors, will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information about the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival or to purchase badges, visit morehousehumanrightsfilmfestival.com.