Doc Powerhouse Sam Pollard Receives Black Public Media’s Trailblazer Award: ‘Time To Give Him The Flowers He Deserves’

Filmmaker Sam Pollard, one of the most prolific and important forces in contemporary documentary filmmaking, will be honored by Black Public Media at the upcoming PitchBlack Awards in New York.

Pollard – who directed or co-directed four feature films and documentaries this year alone, incl The competition And Bill Russell: Legend – will receive the BPM Trailblazer Award at a ceremony on April 25. The event, held at the Stanley H. Kantor Penthouse at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, concludes the latest edition of BPM’s PitchBLACK Forum, billed as “the largest pitch competition of its kind in the United States for independent filmmakers and creative technologists, representing black content.”

“A multiple Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer, director and editor, Pollard is known for his work on a variety of significant works, including: Eyes on the prize, Maynard, MLK/FBI, Lowndes County and the Road to Black PowerAnd Mr. SOUL!” said a press release. “He also worked as an editor for Spike Lee Watchmaker; Mo’Better Blues, Tropical fever, Girl 6, CheatAnd Four little girls.”

The publication also cited some of Pollard’s recent work: “Max Roach: The drum also dances the waltz (PBS), about the legendary jazz drummer and composer who just won the 2023 Best Music Documentary Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA); And South to Black Power (HBO), about journalist and author Charles M. Blow’s call for black people to migrate to the South as a strategy for black liberation.

Pollard won an Emmy for his work on Spike Lee’s When the Dykes Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) and received an Academy Award nomination for producing and editing Lee’s aforementioned film 4 little girls (1997). He is working on directing several upcoming films including The sound of Philadelphiaabout the songwriting and production trio Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, who founded Philadelphia International Records (Deadline wrote about this project last year).

Past winners of the BPM Trailblazer Award include Orlando Bagwell, Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson, Yoruba Richen and Marco Williams, “all celebrated for their longstanding work, particularly in public media, as producers, directors, writers or editors.” the press release reads: “And for a strong record of mentoring the next generation of media producers.”

Leslie Fields-Cruz, executive director of BPM, said in a statement: “Sam has consistently brought to life urgent Black stories that must be seen and studied, creating films that preserve the history and beauty of so many aspects of American culture . He also helped create a new wave of truly talented storytellers. It’s time we all give him the flowers he deserves.”

As part of BPM’s PitchBLACK Trailblazer celebration, the release will feature a select group of Pollard’s films in a special film retrospective. “The program will consist of a combination of in-person and virtual screenings and a conversation with the filmmaker.”

BPM is a Harlem-based national nonprofit “funding and distributing original content and producing engaging works, including the signature series AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange.”