Creative Justice's Short Documentary 'Free the Youth' Is a Highlight in This Year's Seattle Black Film Festival

The Seattle Black Film Festival (SBFF) is back once again to bring Seattleites a taste of Black cinema from local, national, and international filmmakers. Now in its 22rd year, this weekend brings together over 100 Black-led features, shorts, and documentaries centering the Black experience at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute (LHPAI) from today through April 27.

Briaan L. Barron, SBFF marketing director, said in a recent interview that fest organizers focused on making the festival "feel like a homecoming and a celebration not only of Black film and filmmakers across the globe, but really the creators in our backyard who don't always have a platform to showcase their work." This year, LANGSTON is activating the entire building for the festival, hosting screenings in the theater space at LHPAI, and also in the Grand Hall. Additionally, there will be purple popcorn, a house music party, and other events inspired by the short films block. (Many films featured over the weekend will be available to stream online the week after the festival ends.)

"We wanted this to really feel like a festival in all senses of the word," Barron added.

Of important note is SBFF's youth shorts programming showcase on Sunday, featuring short films directed by young filmmakers and/or focusing on youth. Anchoring that program is Free the Youth, a documentary short about the origins of Creative Justice, a Seattle arts-based restorative justice organization focusing on uplifting Black and Brown youth with creativity and dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. Co-directed by production company HRVST House and Creative Justice, the documentary came about as the organization prepared for its 10th anniversary.

"We wanted to honor the journey and celebrate the ways that community can come together and change," said Aaron Counts, Creative Justice cofounder and curricular coach. "[We wanted] to use the Creative Justice story as an illustration of that."

Split into three acts, the documentary is composed of interviews of cultural workers, community organizers, former judges and prosecutors, Creative Justice workers like Counts and nikkita oliver, Creative Justice Youth fellow Faisal Provincial, and more. Starting with the news of King County's plans to build a youth jail in the Central District in 2014, Free the Youth stretches all the way to current-day Creative Justice now headquartered at Washington Hall (where they also run the youth-led, Creative Cafe). As a whole, the documentary is a moving exploration of an important local organization focused on creating lasting change amongst youth of color through creativity.

"When you find people who give a damn or care about people, particularly our youth, make sure they are supported. Because the young people are the future leaders of the world and they need to know what they are standing on," former Creative Justice mentor artist Jace ECAj said in the doc. "Your legacy is built through your life … so how do we make sure Creative Justice's legacy remains intact, true, and honorable and will make a change not just for Seattle but for the rest of the world?"

In the process of making Free the Youth, Counts found a lot of inspiration in digging back into the roots of Creative Justice.

"As someone who was there at the origin, it was a way to reconnect with some of those people who were important in helping us shape the direction of the program. It helped us really think about not just the discussions that we had and the art that came out of it, but, what the impact of that art was," said Counts. "It reinspired myself and then staff members who weren't around at the beginning to just see the values that we grew out of that and what we still want to uphold moving into our second decade."

"Free the Youth"screens at Seattle Black Film Festival on Sunday, April 27, at 4:45 p.m. at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Grand Hall. It will go on streaming from April 28 through May 4. For more information about the Seattle Black Film Festival, head over to the festival's website.