Reel Sisters & BAM Honors Filmmaker Samantha Knowles

REEL SISTERS & BAM HONORS AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER SAMANTHA KNOWLES

On Wed., Oct. 22, 2025 at 7 pm, Reel Sisters and BAM will honor award-winning filmmaker Samantha Knowles, director of Harlem Ice (Disney+), with a trailblazer award for illuminating unsung heroes in her documentaries. Her latest work includes directing an episode of “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water,” a highly acclaimed Netflix docuseries.

Our celebration will showcase a retrospective of Samantha’s work including episodes from Harlem Ice (Disney), Eyes on The Prizes III: We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest 1977-2015 (HBO) and The Coder, a short film about Jay Jay Patton, a rising star in the tech industry, who built her ground-breaking app Photo Patch at age 16.

Yoruba Richen, a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker, will lead a dynamic conversation with Samantha on the power of the female lens in storytelling.

Tickets: $25 ($15 until 10/10/25), plus Eventbrite fees.

Film lovers are encouraged to watch Samantha's films online and join us for an evening of film, conversation and inspiration! The event will be held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Ave.

About Reel Sisters

Founded in 1997, Reel Sisters, the first Oscar qualifying film festival in the nation devoted to women of color, has showcased 10,000+ films by women of African, Asian, Native American, Indian, Latina and Arabic descent. Reel Sisters will be held in Brooklyn on Oct. 25-26, 2025. For information visit www.reelsisters.org.

ABOUT BAM

BAM is the home for curious people and adventurous ideas. We support artistic experimentation and champion inclusion and accessibility throughout the arts as presenter, activator, and connector.

REEL SISTERS TRAILBLAZER HONOREE 2025

Samantha Knowles is an award-winning director. She won a Cinema Eye Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Nonfiction Series for co-directing the HBO docuseries "Black and Missing" and her film, "How We Get Free", was shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. She has also won a Television Academy Honors Award, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing, and a Gracie Award for Best Director of a National TV Program. In 2023 she was named to the DOCNYC 40 Under 40 List, which honors and celebrates emerging talent in the documentary world. Her work has screened as part of Hot Docs, DOC NYC, the Tribeca Film Festival, the New York Times Op-Doc series, on HBO, Showtime, and more. Most recently, she directed the series “Harlem Ice” for Disney+, an episode of the seminal series “Eyes on the Prize” for HBO, and an episode of in the docuseries “Katrina: Come Hell and High Water” for Netflix.

Sam’s first short film, “Why Do You Have Black Dolls?” was the recipient of Reel Sisters Spirit Award 2012.

MODERATOR

Yoruba Richen is a Peabody award-winning documentary filmmaker who was awarded the Trailblazer award by Black Public Media. Her work has been featured on multiple outlets, including PBS, Netflix, MSNBC, Peacock and FX/Hulu. Her film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks won a Gracie Award and was honored by the Television Academy. Other recent work include the Emmy-nominated films , How It Feels to Be Free; The Sit In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show and Green Book: Guide to Freedom. Her film, The Killing of Breonna Taylor won an NAACP Image Award. Her films The New Black and Promised Land won multiple festival awards before airing on PBS's Independent Lens and P.O.V. Yoruba’s other work include directing an episode of the award-winning series Black and Missing for HBO and High on the Hog for Netflix. She most recently directed The Fall of Diddy for ID and HBO Max. Yoruba is a past Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow and a recipient of the Chicken & Egg Breakthrough Filmmaker’s Award. She is Founding Director of the Documentary Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

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