11/06/2024 to 11/10/2024
film festival
Urbanworld Film Festival
New York, NY
- Official Website
Send Message- Karen McMullen
Festival Director & Head of Programming
Key Contacts- Karen McMullen
The Urbanworld Film Festival is the largest internationally competitive festival of its kind, hosted in New York City. The five-day festival includes narrative and documentary features, short films, web originals, branded content, spotlight screenings and conversations, and live staged screenplay readings. Since its inception, Hollywood studios, indie film distributors, and established and emerging filmmakers have consistently chosen Urbanworld® to premiere box office and award-winning hits. Founded in 1997 by Stacy Spikes, Urbanworld has been supported over the years by Founding Sponsor HBO, as well as other industry and brand partners.
Known as the filmmaker’s festival and the people’s festival, where it’s all about celebrating and supporting amazing independent film, Urbanworld will host its 28th year in Manhattan, which has been a home for the festival, since inception in 1997. Last year’s in-person festival featured American Fiction as our opening night feature, and welcomed the multi-talented RZA as our festival ambassador. Over its 28years, Urbanworld has welcomed the likes of Chadwick Boseman, Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry, Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Kate Hudson, Viola Davis, Malcolm D. Lee and Rosie Perez, Misty Copleand, astronaut Leland Melvin among so many more. Queen Latifah, Melvin & Mario Van Peebles, Justin Simien, Gina Prince Bythewood, Larenz Tate, Reginald Hudlin, Kasi Lemmons, and Ava DuVernay have all served as Festival Ambassadors.
Urbanworld Innovation provides a forum featuring case study presentations, panel and roundtable discussions, as well as immersive experiences and intensive workshops on relevant industry subject matter. Participating content creators enjoy hosted industry events by festival partners that foster community with industry peers and executives. After dark, Urbanworld let’s its hair down with celebrates DJs sharing their music with festival attendees during evening after-parties. Simply put…Premieres, Panels, and Innovation is what Urbanworld delivers.
The Urbanworld Film Festival is an initiative of the Urbanworld Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization that redefines and advances the presence and impact of the multicultural community in cinema and cross-platform media. By implementing initiatives that actively support and develop content creators of color, Urbanworld significantly contributes to the evolution of the media and entertainment landscape and the inclusion that it reflects. The festival website is www.urbanworld.org.
