The BFI have annouced full details of a new season, HER VOICE: BLACK WOMEN FROM THE SPOTLIGHT TO THE SCREEN, running at BFI Southbank from 17 May – 30 June, in collaboration with Black Girl Fest.

Programmed by curator, writer and researcher Karen Alexander, the season will celebrate black female performers whose talents have been a major inspiration for musicans and audiences globally; women known for their vocal performances who have adapted their talents to film, such as Whitney Houston, Beyoncé and Diana Ross, as well as those who are depicted in illuminating documentary portraits, including Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald.

Across the years there’s an invisible bond of recognition and sisterhood that links the rich legacy of those who went before to those who followed; Her Voice will celebrate that legecy, and the performers who used their talent not only to entertain and comment, but also to enrich and transform the entertainment industry and those around them.

Film included as part of the season will include first feature to star a black woman, Josephine Baker in Siren of the Tropics (Mario Nalpas, Henri Étiévant, 1927), The Wiz (Sidney Lumet, 1978), starring Diana Ross, as well as documentaries like Whitney: Can I Be Me (Nick Broomfield, Rudi Dolezal, 2017) and Twenty Feet From Stardom (Morgan Neville, 2013).

Full details programme details can be found on the BFI’s website from 26th April, with tickets on sales from 6th May.

Rose is a film critic , who graduated from the University of Liverpool with an MRes in Film Studies. She loves thrillers, Al Pacino, and multilingual cinema and she’s not entirely sure if she’s a millennial.

Find her on twitter, and find more of her work at https://rosedymock.contently.com