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“Stanley and Marcia’s peerless partnership in the public media space has transformed this industry for the better. Black Public Media is thrilled to bestow our highest award on these two independent media titans.”

— Leslie Fields-Cruz, BPM executive director

“For many filmmakers Sam is a friend, a mentor and a colleague. A career spanning four decades, Sam has edited, directed, and produced a string of award-winning films. He’s mentored countless media makers, and has planted seeds that have inspired many more to express their own independent voice.”

— Leslie Fields-Cruz, BPM executive director

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PITCHBLACK RETURNS TO HARLEM

APRIL 29 & 30, 2026

Black Public Media is delighted to host the 2026 PitchBLACK Forum & Awards program on Wed., April 29 and Thurs. evening, April 30, in Harlem at The Apollo Stages at the Victoria Theater.

PitchBLACK Forum

Tameka Kee returns as our PitchBLACK Forum moderator. The Forum’s Wednesday morning session features five documentary film pitches. Later that afternoon, five immersive projects are scheduled to pitch. Learn more about the works in competition by clicking through the carousel of film and immersive projects below. PitchBLACK Forum is an invitational event. Admission is available to independent media makers and members of the public media community. If you are interested in attending, but have not already received an invitation, click the button below to access the credentialing application form. Those who qualify will be notified by email. There is no admission charge to attend the forum.

PitchBLACK Awards

The PitchBLACK Awards program opens with a networking reception followed by a tribute to BPM Trailblazers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith.  As part of the tribute, NPR broadcaster Brittany Luse will interview them about their long and distinguished careers. The awards program also includes presentation of this year’s Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship and announcements of the PitchBLACK Forum winners. A lively afterparty will conclude the festivities featuring DJ Precise. 

Tickets

Visit Ticketmaster to purchase your PitchBLACK Awards tickets starting Mon., March 16. Earlybird sales are 50% off the regular price and run through March 31. Starting April 1, all tickets are $300 each. A 25% discount on regular price tickets is available to BPM donors.

BPM Trailblazer Film Retrospective

As part of this year’s PitchBLACK celebration, we are hosting a BPM Trailblazer Film Retrospective featuring a curated slate of films by Nelson and Smith. All PitchBLACK registrants will get complimentary access to the retrospective for the two weeks between April 27-May 10, 2026. 

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Lillian E. Benson, ACE, is a film and television editor of narrative films and documentaries. In 1991, the native New Yorker was nominated for an Emmy® for her work on the acclaimed PBS civil rights series “Eyes On the Prize II” and has contributed to films that have garnered five Emmy nominations, four Peabody Awards, and numerous other honors.

Benson’s vibrant career has been heavily entrenched in the documentary space, including her recent documentary credits: “Maya Angelou- And Still I Rise”, “Get In The Way- The Journey of John Lewis,” and “Beyond the Steps- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.” Benson also directed two educational documentaries “All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11” and “Amen: The Life and Music of Jester Hairston.” Benson is currently editing the independent feature “Flash Before the Bang”, a coming-of-age story of a deaf athlete. For eight seasons she was an editor of NBC’s episodic television series “Chicago Med” and previously worked on the first seasons of the OWN series “Greenleaf” and “Soul Food” for Showtime. She collaborated with director-choreographer Debbie Allen on several of her film projects including the highly-rated Lifetime MOW “Life Is Not A Fairytale- the Fantasia Barrino Story.”

2025 Trailblazer – Lillian Benson

In 1991, Benson was the first woman of color to become a member of American Cinema Editors, an honorary society, and serves on their board of directors. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy. Benson serves as chair of the ACE Diversity in Editing Mentoring Committee and co-chair of the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s DEI Committee.

In 2017, Benson received the Motion Picture Editors Guild Fellowship and Service Award for her contributions to the union. In March 2023, she received the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award, one of the industry’s highest honors for an editor.

Sam Pollard  is an accomplished feature film and television editor, and documentary producer/director whose work spans more than thirty years. He was producer of the series Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads, and I’ll Make Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community, which received The George Peabody Award.  

Together with Spike Lee, Mr. Pollard co-produced Four Little Girls, about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and When The Levees Broke, that received a Peabody and three Emmy Awards. Mr. Pollard has produced/directed feature-length documentaries including: Slavery By Another Name (PBS), August Wilson: The Ground On Which I Stand (PBS/American Masters), the critically-acclaimed MLK/FBI (2020); Black Art: In the Absence of Light (2021), Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power (2022). He won the Peabody Career Achievement Award,  for “individuals whose work and commitment to broadcasting and digital media have left an indelible mark on the field and in American culture.”

2024 Trailblazer – Sam Pollard

Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and educator whose work has been featured on multiple outlets including PBS, Netflix, MSNBC, HULU, HBO, Frontline, Field of Vision, and New York Times Op Doc. Her recent films include: The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks, which was nominated for a Critics Choice award; American Reckoning (2022), part of Frontline’s award-winning multi-platform series Un(re)solved; Emmy nominated How it Feels to Be Free (2021); Peabody and Emmy nominated The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (2020); and The Killing of Breonna Taylor (2020). Her 2019 film, The Green Book: Guide to Freedom, premiered on the Smithsonian Channel; and her films The New Black (2013) and Promised Land (2010) won several awards before being broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and POV, respectively. In her role as the founding director of the documentary program at City University of New York’s Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, she is preparing future generations of documentary storytellers. In 2020, she was recognized among BPM’s 40 Game Changers as part of the organization’s 40th anniversary celebration of influential and prolific Black media storytellers.

2023 Trailblazer – Yoruba Richen

Orlando Bagwell’s work reflects some of the industry’s most influential storytelling about the civil rights movement and the history of American race relations. His award-winning documentaries have captured the history of Black resistance — from slavery to the civil rights and Black power movements, to present-day stories of race and conflict in contemporary society. As a producer, director, funder, and mentor, he has had a profound impact on the American documentary landscape. His extensive filmography includes: two episodes of the groundbreaking Blackside series Eyes on the Prize (1987, Mississippi: Is this America? and Ain’t Scared of Your Jails); Roots of Resistance (1989); A Hymn for Alvin Ailey (1993); Malcolm X: Make it Plain (1994); Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History (1994) and the multi-part PBS series Africans in America: America’s Journey Through Slavery (1998).

2022 Trailblazer – Orlando Bagwell

Marco Williams is an award-winning director who has been creating films and telling impactful stories for a long time. His credits include: Crafting an Echo, Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Lonnie Holley: The Truth of the Dirt, The Black Fives, The Undocumented, Inside the New Black Panthers; Banished; Freedom Summer; I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education; MLK Boulevard: The Concrete Dream; Two Towns of Jasper; Making Peace: Rebuilding our Communities; Declarations: The Spiritual Deficit and The American Dream; Without a Pass; In Search of Our Fathers; and From Harlem to Harvard.

2021 Trailblazer – Marco Williams

Award-winning Filmmaker, artist and author, Michèle Stephenson, pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots and experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories in a variety of media that resonate beyond the margins. Her work has appeared on broadcast and web platforms, including PBS, Showtime, New York Times Op-Docs, and MTV. Her documentary short, Elena, was featured in Season 13 of BPM’s AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. She is the co-founder of Rada Film Group.

Producer and Director, Joe Brewster is a Harvard trained psychiatrist who uses his psychological training as the foundation in approaching the social issues he tackles as an artist and filmmaker. Brewster, in conjunction with his Rada Film Group co-founder, Michèle Stephenson, have created stories using installation, narrative, documentary and print mediums that have garnered support from critics and audiences internationally.

2019 Trailblazers – Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster