“We’re saying our own name. You might think you know Hayti because you’ve known it for 50 years,” said Monèt Marshall, speaking about the upcoming Hayti Heritage Film Festival. “Let me reintroduce myself. Let me tell you who I’ve been—but also who I am and who I’m becoming.
After a year off, the Hayti Heritage Film Festival returns in 2026 under the curatorial direction of Marshall, a multidisciplinary artist. Marshall describes this year’s program not as resistance but as a community reintroduction and an opportunity to revisit foundational Black films, spotlight emerging voices, and create space for joy.
The annual festival is held at the Hayti Heritage Center, long a gathering place rooted in one of Durham’s historic Black neighborhoods. This is a space shaped by both disruption and resilience after a highway cut through the heart of Hayti decades ago. Today, it remains a cultural anchor in a city still changing around it.
This year’s festival lineup pairs classics with new independent work, inviting audiences to experience film as something communal rather than quiet and distant. Marshall also made a deliberate choice to avoid centering Black trauma this year.
“The world is hard right now,” she said, stating that she asked herself, while curating: “What do we need?”
Ahead of the festival’s March 4—7 run, Marshall spoke to the INDY about circular time, Southern storytelling, film culture in Durham, and the one documentary she believes feels especially urgent.
INDY: When you began shaping the 2026 festival lineup, what question were you trying to answer?
Marshall: The question I’m always asking when I’m programming is: What do we need right now? What does this community need? What does Durham need? And what can we specifically offer through this film festival?
This year, that question led me toward comfort, joy, and conversation. The world is hard right now. So I asked myself, can we gather without centering trauma?
What themes emerged organically in this year’s lineup—and what do they say about where Black cinema is right now?
I think a lot of Black filmmakers are in conversation with the past—even when they don’t realize it. There’s a lot of talk about Afrofuturism, and I love that, but what I’m seeing feels more Sankofa—looking forward and backward at the same time.
When you watch something from 30 or 40 years ago and it still feels urgent, you realize: time isn’t linear.
Monèt Marshall, curator
of the 2026 hhff
We’re trying to understand the present and imagine the future, but we can’t do that without looking at what’s been. We’re putting our current moment in context.
We’re showing films like Buy-Bye Atlanta, which looks at gentrification and the people who made that city what it is. There’s a work-in-progress film called Same Waters, about a woman revisiting childhood riverboat memories while uncovering racist histories and the legacy of Black riverboat captains. There’s a short called The Bedrock of Hayti that focuses on one church in this community.
And we’re revisiting classics. Because when you watch something from 30 or 40 years ago, and it still feels urgent, you realize: Time isn’t linear.
You are rethinking time in your programming?
Oh, absolutely. I don’t think time is linear. I think that’s a very Western idea. Time is circular. We’ve been here before. There’s medicine in our stories. There are tools in our dances and music and films.
That’s why it’s important for us to show films like Ganja & Hess, The Five Heartbeats, The Wiz, and The Watermelon Woman. When you revisit them, you ask: What did this mean then? What does it mean now? Preservation only matters if it’s grounded in relationship.
How do you balance celebrating legacy with platforming emerging voices?
By putting them in conversation with each other …. Some of our indie shorts screen before larger, more recognizable titles. If you’re coming to see The Watermelon Woman, you’re also going to see a contemporary Black queer short beforehand. And I want that connection to feel obvious—like, if you love this classic, you should know this filmmaker, too. Our greatest work is still yet to come. I want the audience to feel that.
What surprised you most during the selection process?
Honestly? The lack of Black animated family films.
I wanted to program a Saturday morning cartoons block. I wanted something joyful, feature length, and animated. And there are very, very few Black animated family films that aren’t wrapped in trauma. That was surprising.
Also, how many films feel like classics that people still haven’t seen. Someone told me they’d never actually watched The Wiz—they just absorbed it culturally. That reminds me, Blackness isn’t a monolith. We’re all coming to these cultural moments from different places.
Hayti is a historic Black community with a complicated past. How does that history influence your curatorial lens?
We live in Durham. We’re steeped in Black culture, yes—but we’re also in relationship with the whole city. I’m constantly thinking: Who is this speaking to? Who’s at the center? And sometimes it’s OK if something isn’t for everyone. But it’s also OK to say: You might not get every reference—but you’re welcome here.
Take how we’re screening The Wiz. It’s a party watch. You can sing along. Dance in the aisles. We’ll hand out yellow pom-poms for “Ease on Down the Road.” That feels like a Black way to watch a film—call and response, joy, participation.
We’re celebrating culture, not just history.
What does it mean to program Black cinema specifically in Durham—not Atlanta or L.A., but here?
Durham has changed. Is changing. There’s tension between honoring legacy and welcoming new neighbors. Arts and culture are our bridge.
We’re not going to shrink ourselves to make room. But we are going to invite you in. It’s not just about what’s on the screen—it’s who you’re sitting beside. It’s the conversations before and after. It’s recognizing that James Baldwin walked here. Dr. King walked here. We care about our stories. Our activism. Our dreams for what Durham can still become.
What stories about Black life still aren’t being funded or widely distributed?
Cross-diasporic films. Black folks in the U.S. don’t always get access to films from the continent, or the Caribbean, or other parts of the diaspora. There’s a missing link in that exchange. I want us to see more of each other across borders. That’s something I hope we can expand into throughout the year.
Do you see a distinct Southern Black cinematic voice emerging?
Yes. For so long, the Black South in film was slavery or civil rights. That was it.
Now I’m seeing stories grounded in land. In place. In ancestry. There’s less shame about being agricultural, about being rural, about being rooted. We don’t have 20-story apartment buildings. We have acres. Cotton fields. Churches surrounded by land. That specificity matters. There’s power in being particular about place.
Is there one film this year that feels especially urgent?
TCB: The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing.
Toni Cade Bambara gave us the quote “As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make revolution irresistible.”
I define myself as a cultural organizer. And in this moment, I think culture work is what saves us. Culture is how we be. Art is the evidence of how we be.
If we want to change how we live—with each other, with our planet, with our government—then we need art that reflects that. That film feels urgent.
What do you hope a young Durham filmmaker takes away from attending?
Relationships. Come introduce yourself. Build something here. Also: perfection is not required. We’re screening work-in-progress pieces alongside more polished films. There’s space for you. And finally: We get to build a Black Southern film culture that looks like us. That talks back to the screen. That sings. That throws dance parties after the credits roll.
If audiences leave with one lingering thought, what do you hope it is?
“I can’t wait to come back.”
What keeps you doing this work?
I believe in us. I believe our art, our dances, our music, our films—they will save us. I’m not a doctor. I’m not meant to be a teacher. But I am an artist. And I can play my part. And I live in Durham, North Carolina—where I know my neighbor’s name, and if it snows and they run out of milk, they can knock on my door.
I believe we can build a world that serves us. So that’s why I do it.
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