BlackStar Film Festival Director Nehad Khader on Storytelling and Imagination’s Role in Liberation

Philadelphia’s BlackStar Film Festival is set to kick off on August 1st. Opening day programming features films that hail from Brazil, Manila, the American Midwest, Pakistan, and more. And though this year’s offerings are as emblematically diverse and probing as ever, if you ask festival director Nehad Khader what makes the right kind of BlackStar film, her answer is an evocative commentary on both film and artmaking in a time of sociopolitical upheaval: “We like to look for films that break something,” Khader told Al-Bustan. “Maybe they’re breaking form or breaking genre. Or doing something really unexpected… But think of those films that make you ask questions. That challenge you to think outside of what you already believe.”