Urbanworld Film Fest returns to New York with Planet Rock, Brooklyn Boheme, and A Movie Like Spike

The 15th annual edition of the Urbanworld Film Festival comes to the AMC 34th Street Theater in New York City beginning tomorrow, September 14th, and runs through Sunday the 18th.

Urbanworld, the largest internationally competitive festival of its kind, includes features, documentaries, and short films, as well as panel discussions, live staged screenplay readings, and the 2nd Annual Urbanworld Digital, a 1-day Conference focused on digital and social media.

Notable screenings include the World Premiere of Nelson George’s documentary Brooklyn Boheme, the New York Premiere of Alrick Brown’s Kinyarwanda, the World Premiere of the Ice T-produced Vh1 documentary Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation, and others.

A number of celebrities will walk the red carpet at Urbanworld in support of the 59 films that will be featured. Nelson George, Chris Rock and filmmaker Allen Hughes (Menace II Society, Book of Eli) among other notables will kick off the festival with the Opening Night world premiere of Brooklyn Boheme (Spike Lee, Rock, Branford Marsalis, Rosie Perez, Saul Williams) on Thursday, September 15th at 8pm.

Additionally, veteran father-son filmmakers Mario Van Peebles and Melvin Van Peebles will serve as festival co-ambassadors. Mario’s All Things Fall Apart, starring Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Lynn Whitfield, will screen on Friday, September 16th at 7:30pm, followed by a cast Q&A.

Poet legend Sonia Sanchez will attend the screening of her documentary Sonia Sanchez: Shake Loose Memories on Friday, Sept. 16th at 6pm. Also on Friday, Victor Razuk (star of HBO’s How to Make It in America) will be on hand for the show’s screening and Q&A moderated by Toure at 8pm.

On Saturday at 8pm, Jamie Hector and radio personality Egypt will attend the screening of Life Love Soul. Finally, Closing Night film Kinyarwanda will be attended by director Alrick Brown and actress Cassandra Freeman.

Here are trailers for some of the films screening during the 4-day event.

Make a Movie Like Spike

The Start of Dreams

Love Arranged

The Learning

Yelling To The Sky

Find out more about the Urbanworld Film Festival at urbanworld.org.