Experience Allison Janae Hamilton’s (2019 Awardee) trancelike experimental film Celestine (Florida Storm) that captures a starry night sky over rural North Florida. A recording of “Florida Storm,” a 1928 hymn written by Judge Jackson in response to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 — a text that has informed Allison Janae Hamilton’s work for years — plays on a loop underneath various celestial scenes made from time-lapse astrophotography. The film hearkens to the history of North Florida’s turpentine industry — a brutal system of labor where workers began the workday before sunrise and toiled until well after sunset — and contemplates how their only moments of rest or leisure must have taken place under the cover of this starry expanse.

Celestine (Florida Storm) is presented as part of BlackStar Film Festival.