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Filmmakers Shatara Michelle Ford and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, whose feature films anchor this year’s festival, took the stage during a press preview at Manhattan’s NeueHouse earlier this month. Ford, an African-American filmmaker from the Midwest who will kick off BlackStar’s lineup with the world premiere of Dreams in Nightmares (2024), elaborated on their desire to create not only a quintessential “roadtrip movie” but a specifically Black and queer take on the 1984 film Paris, Texas . In conversation with critic Zeba Blay and the film’s lead actor, Denée Benton, Ford explained that the throughline for Dreams in Nightmares is searching for a friend who somehow fe.