Ngoma Film Works Trailers
What Ngoma Film Works Is
Launched in the Summer of 2020 in partnership with Dog Bark Media (a DC-based Black-owned media company), Ngoma Film Works highlights urban and classic society, human relationships, cultural history, and visual-choreo art through documentaries and narrative film.
Created to further Ngoma's ability to enlighten artists through creative innovation, expand audience viewership, and build new video and visual artist relationships for future collaboration — Ngoma Film Works furthers Ngoma's mission of community integration, inspirational performance, and artistic development.
The program was essential in providing a platform for DDT's COVID-restricted 14th season, and continues to develop a catalog of documentary films that speak to Ngoma's history and its community.
- 01Create original stories that further the field of dance.
- 02Push creative innovation that celebrates the African-American experience.
- 03Pose questions through narrative film, to engage and inspire.
Featured Films
Four projects from the Ngoma Film Works catalog — spanning web series, short film, feature documentary, and a 90-minute documentary in pre-production.
His Eyes Saw Dance
The web series that demonstrated the appetite for telling DDT's story on screen — and the visual storytelling instincts that would later inform Ngoma Film Works' feature documentary projects.
- Award Winner, Best Shorts Competition · Top Shorts (Black Web Series)
- Official Selection · Kwanza Film Festival, NYC
- Official Selection · Dancinema DC
- Official Selection · American Dance Festival's Movies by Movers
- Official Selection · British Urban Film Festival
Company D
An intimate look at Dissonance Dance Theatre's journey as DC's only nationally-recognized Black-managed contemporary ballet company between NYC and Atlanta. The film explores the struggles and triumphs of building equity in the dance world — through interviews with DDT dancers, artists, and supporters. Featuring DDT company members.
- Best Documentary, 2023 · DC International Cinema Festival
- $100K+ production investment (2022)
MUTE: Dancers Silenced by COVID
An 18-minute film short surrounding an international cast of dancers as they discuss — while in lockdown — the murder of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, COVID, and loss of employment, viewing their futures with optimism. This project gave DDT Resident Choreographer Kareem B. Goodwin his first film credit as a choreographer.
- Winner · Oniros Film Awards, New York City
- Winner, Best Dance Film · Cannes World Film Festival
Deep Inside: DC Black SGL Life
A 90-minute documentary chronicling Washington, DC's Black Same Gender Loving community through the lens of House music culture from the 1980s through 2000s. The film employs Ngoma's signature approach of integrating dance as emotional interpretation alongside oral history — Dissonance Dance Theatre dancers bring physicality to stories that words alone cannot capture: sanctuary, survival, and celebration through contemporary ballet and House dance vocabulary. The documentary honors the Black SGL individuals who created community on dance floors, survived the AIDS crisis through mutual care, and carved out spaces for joy and love despite systemic oppression.
- Pre-production commenced in Northeast Washington
- Builds on the award-winning legacy of Company D and MUTE
- Interviews with community elders + archival footage preserving vital cultural history
Festivals & Awards
Ngoma Film Works' projects have screened internationally and nationally — 10+ festival selections and 4 award wins across the catalog.
Fund the next documentary.
Deep Inside: DC Black SGL Life is in pre-production now. Your investment underwrites the interviews with community elders, the archival footage acquisition, and the choreography-as-oral-history that has defined Ngoma Film Works' approach since 2020. Company D was made possible by $100,000+ in support during a single production year — Deep Inside requires the same.
Ngoma Center for Dance is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit. All contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.