Come watch the best K–12 Michigan student films on the big screen. Held annually at the Detroit Film Theatre, the Michigan Student Film Festival has been the signature event of Digital Arts, Film & Television (DAFT) for 56 years.

This juried festival is a high honor for students and has served as a gateway for past participants to careers in the film industry. All types of genres will be shown, including narratives, animation, news broadcasts, experimental films, and documentaries. 

For families with children 10 and up. 

Program schedule:

• 10 a.m., Kindergarten–8th grade awards
• 12:30 p.m., 9–12th grade awards

(USA/2023—dir. Hamoody Jaafar)

In the 1950s, legendary high school basketball coach Lofton Greene led the recently racially integrated River Rouge High School Panthers to a record number of state championships in a league made up of segregated schools. Now, almost 70 years later, former Panther LaMonta Stone has returned to the struggling industrial town of River Rouge to help the Panthers chase the school's 15th State Championship. 

In this coming-of-age story, Stone and four student athletes strive to fulfill generations' worth of work, on and off the court. The film includes appearances by Michigan State Basketball's head coach Tom Izzo, Detroit Pistons announcer George Blaha, and longtime Free Press high school sportswriter Mick McCabe.

Produced by the Detroit Free Press, the Freep Film Festival focuses on documentaries, especially those with connections to Detroit and Michigan. Screenings include in-depth discussions with directors, film subjects, and community members. Freep Film Festival also presents live events at venues throughout metro Detroit, with activities centered in the downtown core. 

Tickets for all Freep Film Festival screenings hosted at Detroit Film Theatre are available in advance at freepfilmfestival.com.
 

(USA/1978 — dir. by Sidney Lumet) 

Adapted from the 1974 Broadway musical of the same name, The Wiz reimagines L. Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  with an all-Black cast. Diana Ross plays Dorothy, a Harlem schoolteacher who finds herself magically transported to the urban fantasy Land of Oz. As she travels to find the mysterious Wiz, Dorothy befriends a Scarecrow (Michael Jackson), the Tin Man (Nipsey Russell), and the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross). 

This Motown Productions film has become a cult favorite, with many innovations that impacted popular Black cinema from the 1970s. While at the museum, be sure to check out the DIA's special exhibition Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971 on view through June 23, 2024.  
 

(USA/1932-directed by Oscar Micheaux)

Micheaux’s earliest surviving sound film is set in the Club Libya, a Harlem cabaret modeled on the iconic Cotton Club popular with Black artists in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lawrence Chenault plays a movie producer who becomes a fixture at the club as he scouts for talent to cast in his newest picture but finds he can't choose between two singers, both named Ida. The story then shifts to another patron (Willor Lee Guilford) who gets a note saying she will receive a second note, then be killed ten minutes afterwards.

Based on three unpublished short stories by Micheaux, Ten Minutes to Live cast real-life Cotton Club musicians as extras and preserves on its soundtrack Micheaux shouting “cut!” a beat before a scene ended. (68 min.) Presented with a live piano score by Ian Finkelstein. 

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.   

(Japan/2023—directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi) 

Deep in the forest of the rural village Harasawa, single parent Takumi lives with his young daughter, Hana, and does odd jobs for locals. The serenity of this untouched land is disrupted by the arrival of a Tokyo company ready to start construction on a glamping site for tourists—a plan that could have dire results for the community.

This potent and foreboding new film from Oscar®-winning director Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) is a haunting, unexpected experience with its rapturous score that breaks from the usual country-vs.-city themes and walks the line between the earthly and the metaphysical. Grand Jury Prizes, Venice Film Festival and Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In Japanese with English subtitles. (105 min.)

“A complex drama, teetering on the edge of the uncanny. I found it rippling around in my mind long after the final shot.” –Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian 

(USA/1943—directed by Vincente Minnelli) 

Mortally wounded while gambling, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson gets a heavenly reprieve thanks to prayers from his wife Ethel Waters, but Rex Ingram’s “Lucifer Jr.” has a secret weapon in the battle for Anderson’s soul: Lena Horne’s sultry and sweet Georgia Brown. Despite the competition, Waters proves to have “everything you’ve got and a whole lot more.”

Director Vincente Minnelli’s first major movie musical cast of some of the top Black talent of the day, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, Butterfly McQueen, and Mantan Moreland—but above all Cabin in the Sky remains a stunning showcase for Waters’ legendary singing and comic genius. (98 min.)

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.   

(USA/1961—directed by Daniel Petrie)  

When Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway in 1959 it was the first written by a Black woman, and the first with a Black director and cast nominated for Best Play, Best Actor (Sidney Poitier), Best Actress (Claudia McNeil), and Best Director (Lloyd Roberts) at that year’s Tony Awards®.

A film adaptation followed quickly, with several key members of the original cast reprising their roles, including McNeil as the matriarch of the close-knit Younger family and Poitier as her married son. Combined with supporting performances from Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett, and Ivan Dixon, this brilliant ensemble captured the struggle of Black families to nurture dreams for the future at the same time they are being forced to the edges of American society. (128 min.)  

“There are times it seems as if every member of the cast is striving for an Oscar and coming near to copping it.” —Marjory Adams, The Boston Globe, 1961 

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.   

(Argentina/1951—directed by Pierre Chenal)  

One of the most controversial novels of its day, Richard Wright's Native Son (first published in 1940) exposed the relentless injustices of urban Black life, as seen through the eyes of the main character, the complicated, violent chauffeur-turned-murderer Bigger Thomas. In prison for murder and sentenced to death, Thomas reflects on the circumstances that led to his fate.

Wright himself stars in this new restoration of the 1951 film adaptation. Native Son is preceded by a filmed introduction by the historian Jacqueline Najima Stewart. (84 min.) 

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.   

(France/Luxembourg/Netherlands/2023—directed by Wang Bing)  

The latest epic work of observational nonfiction from Wang Bing continues the filmmaker’s chronicle of the economic, social, and personal upheavals happening across a transforming China. Youth (Spring) is a remarkable account of rural migrant workers employed in textile factories in Zhili, a town outside Shanghai.

This film is specifically about the lives of the young, and forcefully and humanely depicts—with its director’s reassuring patience and unassuming formal rigor—the consequences of the country’s rapid growth on the minds and bodies of a new generation of workers. Official Selection, Cannes, New York, and Toronto International Film Festivals. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (218 min.) 

“Wang Bing sits at the pinnacle of the Chinese documentary groundswell.” —Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times 
 

(USA/1955—directed by Otto Preminger)  

Composer George Bizet's opera Carmen—the tragedy of an honorable soldier who is led to perdition by a passionate but reckless woman—has become standard repertoire in concert halls since its premiere in 1875. Its unique syncopated score was taken from Spanish and Cuban dance rhythms, the same source of inspiration for early Black jazz pioneers such as W. C. Handy.

It was adapted as the Broadway musical Carmen Jones in 1943, with the scenes reset to a WWII parachute factory. Preminger’s film version of this production has a powerful all-Black cast that includes Harry Belafonte as the soldier and Dorothy Dandridge in the title role, and pioneering cinematography using the new widescreen Cinemascope format.

Dandridge’s incandescent performance as a proud spirit who refuses to conform to social expectations earned her the first Academy Award® nomination for Best Actress given to a Black woman. (105 min.) 

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.