Black Public Media is set to top $2 million in support for PitchBLACK film and immersive projects at this year’s national pitch competition | Black Public Media (BPM) is on target to hit $2 million in funding this year for film and immersive projects through its PitchBLACK Forum — the largest pitch competition of its kind in the United States for independent filmmakers and creative technologists who create Black content. The event will take place in Harlem on Wednesday, April 30, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Winners of production and distribution awards will be announced at the PitchBLACK Awards on Thursday, May 1, at 7 p.m., an event during which history-making film editor Lillian E. Benson, ACE (American Cinema Editors) will receive the prestigious BPM Trailblazer Award. Benson is known for her Emmy® nominated work on Eyes on the Prize II, Showtime’s Soul Food, NBC’s Chicago Med and OWN’s Greenleaf. Sponsored by Netflix and PBS, PitchBLACK will feature creatives pitching their projects before an audience of public media, commercial television networks, distributors and funders from across the country.
BPM is a national nonprofit that funds quality film and immersive work, develops media makers and produces and distributes original content. Since 2015, the group has awarded more than $1.8 million to 23 film and immersive projects through the competition, which this year moves to The Apollo Stages at the Victoria in Harlem, the New York City neighborhood where BPM is based. With BPM planning to award more than $225,000 to projects this year, the organization will break the $2 million mark for funding awarded through the PitchBLACK program since it launched in 2015.
“We are happy to host PitchBLACK in the creative and cultural mecca of Harlem this year,” said Leslie Fields-Cruz, executive director of BPM. “PitchBLACK always offers a wonderful array of projects presenting unique mixes of entertainment, ingenuity and craftsmanship. We look forward to what this year’s creatives have in store for audiences.”
Advertising futurist Tameka Kee returns as moderator of the PitchBLACK Forum this year. Those competing in the film segment, taking place from 9 a.m. to noon, all with documentary projects are: Sidney Fussell and Jennifer Holness; Karen Hayes; Arlieta Hall and Brittany Alsot; Chelsi Bullard and Jacqueline Olive; and Caron Creighton. Immersive project competitors — Anatola Araba, Aya, Steven Christian, Jeremy Kamal, Joel Mack and Rasheed Peters — will take the stage from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. with projects that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality, 3D animation, or are games.
Winners of the PitchBLACK Forum will be announced at the PitchBLACK Awards on Thursday, May 1, at 7 p.m. Hosted by comedian Jamie Roberts, the event will include a conversation with Benson moderated by NPR host Brittany Luse (It’s Been a Minute). The winner of the Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship, named after BPM’s late director of digital initiatives and awarding a talented under-30 creative, will also be announced at the awards ceremony. The evening will culminate with a lively afterparty. Tickets for the PitchBLACK Awards are $300 and can be purchased at the Apollo at: https://www.apollotheater.org/event/pitchblack-awards-ceremony.
This year’s BPM Trailblazer Film Retrospective will feature a curated collection of works edited by Benson available for streaming for free on blackpublicmedia.org between April 28 and May 12. Films include Beyond the Steps; Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise; New World, New Forms and The Taste of Dirt; and two parts of Eyes on the Prize II: The Promised Land (Part 10) and Keys to the Kingdom (Part 13).
PitchBLACK is sponsored by Netflix and PBS, with additional support from Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Acton Family Giving, Agog LLC, New York Community Trust, Rockefeller Family Fund, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Sonder Foundation and New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
To find out more about the competing projects, visit https://blackpublicmedia.org/pitch-black/pitchblack-2025/. For more information on BPM, go to blackpublicmedia.org. Follow the organization and watch PitchBLACK highlights at @blackpublicmedia on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
ABOUT …
Lillian E. Benson, ACE, is a film and television editor of narrative films and documentaries. In 1991, this native New Yorker was nominated for an Emmy® for her work on the acclaimed PBS civil rights series Eyes On the Prize II. Projects she edited have garnered five Emmy nominations, four Peabody Awards, and numerous other honors. Benson’s vibrant career is heavily entrenched in the documentary space. Her recent documentary credits include 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 she previously worked on the first seasons of the OWN series Greenleaf and Showtime’s Soul Food. She collaborated with director-choreographer Debbie Allen on several of her film projects including the highly rated Lifetime Movie of the Week Life Is Not A Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story.
Benson serves on the board of directors of the American Cinema Editors. 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 as co-chair of the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s DEI Committee. She also serves on the board of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
Tameka Kee curates unforgettable experiences and thought-provoking conversations. She has produced dozens of live experiences, from conferences and workshops for publicly-traded companies, to international trade shows with 10,000+ attendees. A former journalist and analyst, Kee currently serves as the deputy managing director for Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a division of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) focused on developing research that highlights best practices, innovation and areas of improvement in measurement and data usage across the media and advertising ecosystem.
Winners of the PitchBLACK Forum will be announced at the PitchBLACK Awards on Thursday, May 1, at 7 p.m. Hosted by comedian Jamie Roberts, the event will include a conversation with Benson moderated by NPR host Brittany Luse (It’s Been a Minute). The winner of the Nonso Christian Ugbode Fellowship, named after BPM’s late director of digital initiatives and awarding a talented under-30 creative, will also be announced at the awards ceremony. The evening will culminate with a lively afterparty. Tickets for the PitchBLACK Awards are $300 and can be purchased at the Apollo at: https://www.apollotheater.org/event/pitchblack-awards-ceremony.
This year’s BPM Trailblazer Film Retrospective will feature a curated collection of works edited by Benson available for streaming for free on blackpublicmedia.org between April 28 and May 12. Films include Beyond the Steps; Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise; New World, New Forms and The Taste of Dirt; and two parts of Eyes on the Prize II: The Promised Land (Part 10) and Keys to the Kingdom (Part 13).
PitchBLACK is sponsored by Netflix and PBS, with additional support from Corporation for Public Broadcasting, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Acton Family Giving, Agog LLC, New York Community Trust, Rockefeller Family Fund, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Jerome Foundation, Sonder Foundation and New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
To find out more about the competing projects, visit https://blackpublicmedia.org/pitch-black/pitchblack-2025/. For more information on BPM, go to blackpublicmedia.org. Follow the organization and watch PitchBLACK highlights at @blackpublicmedia on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
ABOUT …
Lillian E. Benson, ACE, is a film and television editor of narrative films and documentaries. In 1991, this native New Yorker was nominated for an Emmy® for her work on the acclaimed PBS civil rights series Eyes On the Prize II. Projects she edited have garnered five Emmy nominations, four Peabody Awards, and numerous other honors. Benson’s vibrant career is heavily entrenched in the documentary space. Her recent documentary credits include 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 she previously worked on the first seasons of the OWN series Greenleaf and Showtime’s Soul Food. She collaborated with director-choreographer Debbie Allen on several of her film projects including the highly rated Lifetime Movie of the Week Life Is Not A Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story.
Benson serves on the board of directors of the American Cinema Editors. 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 as co-chair of the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s DEI Committee. She also serves on the board of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.
Tameka Kee curates unforgettable experiences and thought-provoking conversations. She has produced dozens of live experiences, from conferences and workshops for publicly-traded companies, to international trade shows with 10,000+ attendees. A former journalist and analyst, Kee currently serves as the deputy managing director for Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a division of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) focused on developing research that highlights best practices, innovation and areas of improvement in measurement and data usage across the media and advertising ecosystem.
Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, on-air host and cultural critic. She is currently the host of It’s Been a Minute from NPR. Previously, Luse hosted For Colored Nerds, The Nod and Sampler podcasts, and co-hosted and executive produced The Nod with Brittany and Eric, a daily streaming show. She’s written for Vulture and Harper’s Bazaar, among others, and edited for the podcasts Planet Money and Not Past It. Luse and her work have been profiled by publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker and Teen Vogue.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Amityville, New York, Jamie Roberts is a multi-talented comedian, entrepreneur and producer who has built a reputation for delivering sharp, high-energy performances. Roberts’ passion for comedy ignited early when he was voted “Funniest Person” by his senior class. Since then, he has captivated audiences across the
U.S. and internationally in Jamaica, Antigua, Mexico and Grenada. He has taken the stage at legendary venues such as The Apollo Theater in Harlem, The Strand Theater in Oak Bluffs, Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor and The Laugh Factory in Hollywood. Roberts has been featured on MTV, Tidal, XM Radio, The Grio, The Root, and ABC Radio, and appeared on NBC’s Law & Order, HBO’s Paterno and FYI Network’s A Question of Love. He has also been
interviewed on CBS New York, Fox 5 New York, and NY1. His comedic style blends insightful storytelling with a charismatic stage presence, making him a fan favorite among diverse audiences. Roberts is the co-owner of Comedy In Harlem — Harlem’s first Black-owned comedy club — alongside his wife, Nicky Sunshine.
Black Public Media supports the development of visionary content creators and distributes stories about the global Black experience to inspire a more equitable and inclusive future. For 45 years, BPM has addressed the needs of unserved and underserved audiences. BPM-supported programs have won five Emmys®,10 Peabodys, five Anthem Awards, 14 Emmy® nominations and an Oscar® nomination. BPM continues to address historical, contemporary, and systemic challenges that traditionally impede the development and distribution of Black stories.
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