Founding Further: Reclaim The Past, Reimagine The Future

Big Picture Alliance is premiering Founding Further at the Film Society Center on Wednesday, November 4, at 6 PM. It's a documentary film series that puts the spotlight on underrepresented Philadelphians who helped shape the city and the country over the last 250 years—people whose legacies have been left out, obscured, or erased from the stories we usually hear.

The evening opens with five new films: Alàpa, Lòmëwe: Tomorrow, Long Ago (dir. Bettina Escauriza), James Forten (dir. Kyra Knox), Indelible (dir. Gianna Brown), Silence = Death (dir. Izzy/Idris Mansaray), and The Gloria! Project (dir. Kelly Burkhardt and Kemar Jewel). After the screenings, there's a panel discussion with the filmmakers and their partners, so you can hear from the people who actually put these stories together.

There's a specific way these films were made. Each one came from an intergenerational team of local filmmakers working with historical institutions, scholars, and community organizations. The idea is to reclaim a collective past and reimagine a shared future, and the intergenerational part is a big piece of that—younger and older filmmakers working together on the same project. The series is funded by The Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial, which includes the William Penn Foundation, Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, Comcast Corporation, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Neubauer Family Foundation, Knight Foundation, and The Connelly Foundation, with additional funding from People's Media Fund, the Philadelphia City Fund 2026 Neighborhood Celebration Grant, and PECO.

It's a free public screening at the Film Society Center in Philadelphia, starting at 6 PM on Wednesday, November 4. The night runs from the premiere of the five films straight into the panel discussion with the filmmakers.