Black Public Media (BPM) says that Luchina Fisher’s “Hiding in Plain Sight,” a rousing exploration of the Black queer artists who have helped to shape every genre of popular music and culture, won the top prize of $150,000 at the ninth PitchBLACK Awards on May 7.
The BPM event, which also included the presentation of the 2026 BPM Trailblazer Award to filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith, culminated its PitchBLACK competition — the nation’s largest pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists who create Black content.
Sponsored by Netflix and Andscape. PitchBLACK took place at The Apollo Stages at the Victoria in Harlem.
BPM said “Hiding in Plain Sight,” the first two-time PitchBLACK award winner (2023 and 2026), tells the unsung story of Black queer artists in music told through the personal stories of contemporary and historic figures who have shaped today’s sound and culture but rarely receive recognition of their full identities.
“The documentary brings to life the stories of Black queer performers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard, whose influence can be seen in mainstream artists like David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Harry Styles,” BPM said.
It said, this year, five film projects and five immersive media projects competed at the PitchBLACK Forum, hosted by advertising futurist Tameka Kee.
BPM said two projects came away with Immersive awards: “Squidpunk,” by Naomi Urey and Georgiana Wright — a high-energy, beat-’em-up video game about sisterhood and street fights in Y2K Japan — won the top prize of $50,000. “Omnivores Rule,” by Connor Wall — a third-person biological simulation video game about a flying android learning ecological empathy on an alien planet — received $25,000 in production funding, BPM said.
BPM Executive Director Leslie Fields-Cruz presented the 2026 Trailblazer Award to Nelson and Smith, recognizing their acclaimed body of work and their enduring impact on documentary filmmaking, including their role in nurturing the next generation of filmmakers.
BPM said the event featured an Artists’ Chat with the married duo, moderated by NPR host Brittany Luse (“It’s Been a Minute”).
“Good stories don’t just appear. As our trailblazers and pitchers have shown us, they take time,” said Fields-Cruz. “They take care. And yes, they take resources. That’s why this moment is really about how we support the stories and the storytellers.
“Through our Black Stories Production Fund, we’re inviting the public — audiences, communities, people who believe in this work — to invest in them, and fuel the future of Black stories, to not just watch the stories, but to bring them into existence,” she added, “because the future of this field will not be built by institutions alone. It will be built by all of us.”
To further celebrate Nelson and Smith’s remarkable accomplishments, BPM said it presented a special online retrospective of their films, running through Sunday, May 10.
BPM said Amirah Adem, a Los Angeles-based director and producer, was selected as the 2026 Nonso Christian Ugbode Digital Media Award recipient.
Named after BPM’s late director of digital initiatives, BPM said the award honors a talented under-30 creative technologist working in new media.
BPM said Adem, a graduate of the University of Southern California (MFA) and Pomona College (BA), centers films on Black leads in untold stories. “Silent,” by Nile Price — a cinematic musing on the psychic effects of our endlessly plugged-in world — was named the 2026 AfroPoP Digital Shorts Viewers’ Choice winner, BPM said. The film appears on BPM’s YouTube channel.
Founded in 1979, BPM said it funds quality film and immersive stories, develops media makers, and produces and distributes original content.
