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CANNES, FRANCE | May 26, 2026 | The Ebony Canal A Story of Black Infant Health

documentary directed by six-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Emmai Alaquiva and

narrated by EGOT Viola Davis, has won three top honors at the 2026 Diversity in Cannes

Short Film Showcase, capping a defining week on the world’s most prestigious film stage and

marking the first international stop of the film’s Global Birth Equity Tour, which launched in

April 2026 during Black Maternal Health Week. The film also screened as part of the official

Festival de Cannes at Pavillon Afronova, marking two historic screenings and an undeniable

global moment for the maternal-health movement.

MAY 13 | OFFICIAL FESTIVAL DE CANNES SCREENING AT PAVILLON AFRONOVA On

Wednesday, May 13, The Ebony Canal made its official Festival de Cannes debut with a

featured screening at Pavillon Afronova, now in its 7th edition at the Marché du Film and

recently rebranded from Pavillon Afriques to reflect an expanded vision of Africa’s creative

industries and their global influence. The screening placed The Ebony Canal before an

international audience of press, programmers, distributors, and filmmakers, opening the door to

the conversations, partnerships, and momentum that defined the rest of the week.

TRIPLE WIN AT DIVERSITY IN CANNES SHORT FILM SHOWCASE Five days later, on

Monday, May 18, The Ebony Canal returned to the Croisette for a featured screening at the

Diversity in Cannes Short Film Showcase, Founded by Yolonda Brinkley, Diversity in

Cannes continues its mission of championing underrepresented voices in global cinema by

creating opportunities for visibility, access, and meaningful industry engagement during one of

the world’s most prestigious film gatherings.

Presented with support from Julius Tennon and Academy Award winner Viola Davis’s

JuVee Productions, Melanie Hoyes, Senior Director of Inclusion at the British Film

Institute, and Screen Australia, the 2026 showcase was held during Diversity Day, May

18, 2026, at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Ebony Canal closed the night as one of the program’s most decorated titles — taking

home:

■ Best Documentary.

■ Best First-Time Director (Emmai Alaquiva)

■ Best Editing.

The wins arrive on the heels of the film’s recent NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Short

Form Documentary (Film), and add to a growing list of honors: including two Emmy Awards,

three Webby Awards, six Telly Awards, Best Short Documentary (Social Impact) at the 2025

Essence Film Festival, and the 2025 Cultural Visionary Award from Urbanworld Film Festival.

“"To be honored amongst a cadre of the most talented and visionary filmmakers in the

world at the Cannes Film Festival was an experience of a lifetime. The Ebony Canal has

made a global impact for illuminating a crisis but also for the exceptional filmmaking

prowess of Emmai Alaquiva. — Janis Burley, President & CEO, August Wilson African

American Cultural Center.

About The Ebony Canal

This is an Emmy Award-winning documentary captures the humanity and inequities shaping

Black motherhood through the stories of Mariah Peoples, Rachel Strader, Alana Yzola-Daly,

and Larissa Keys (Lane). It features appearances and commentary from Vice President

Kamala Harris, actor and advocate Lamman Rucker, and journalist and maternal-health

advocate Elaine Welteroth, with creative contributions by Keke Palmer. The film features an

original score by Bud’da (Stephen Anderson), a Grammy-nominated producer and

composer whose work blends emotion and storytelling. It deepens through data and analytic

insights from maternal-health expert Dr. Margaret Larkins Pettigrew, whose research and

advocacy highlight the systemic realities defining birth and survival for Black families in

America.

Executive Produced by Brenda Gilbert, Lekha Singh, Sanjay Rawal, and Sam Reiman.

Special thanks to the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the August Wilson African

American Cultural Center for their contributions to this film.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Text by John Cameron Mitchell, Music & Lyrics by Stephen Trask
Directed by Robert Ramirez
May 2 – June 7, 2026

Presented in partnership with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

First staged at City Theatre in 2003, Hedwig and the Angry Inch will electrify the Greer Cabaret downtown in our first-ever revival of a legendary show adored by audiences and hailed by critics. The Tony Award-winning, fierce and energetic musical follows the life, loves, and heartbreaks of the legendary Hedwig, an East German rock and roll goddess. Funny, inspiring, and brimming with energy, Hedwig is a love story to those who have too much fight in them to quit.

URL: https://citytheatrecompany.org/production/100838/hedwig-and-the-angry-inch

This showcase has featured early films from Ryan Coogler (Sinners, Black Panther), Stephen Caple Jr. (Creed II, Transformers: Rise of The Beast) and Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard, Bob Marley: One Love).

In Good Hands tells the compelling story of Dr. Diana Asante, a pediatric emergency physician navigating the challenges brought on by her last patients of the shift: a white boy unfamiliar with a Black female doctor, and an African American teenager caught in a dire situation with law enforcement. These incidents were drawn from real-life events of Dr. Owusu-Ansah, who works in a nationally recognized children’s hospital in Pittsburgh and also recently consulted for HBO’s The Pitt.

The film was written by Yasmine Crawley, a former CBS Page who currently works as an assistant and production associate at See it Now Studios, which produces documentaries and unscripted series for Paramount+ and CBS. Crawley and Dr. Sylvia participated in the PITTch Storytelling Initiative, which was funded in 2021 by a Richard King Mellon Foundation grant to help create more local career opportunities in southwestern Pennsylvania's growing film industry. In Good Hands was made as a community teaching film with a diverse group of students and community members working in front of and behind the camera, led by a producer/professor with Hollywood experience.

The film features a talented cast, including Chanell C.J. Harris in the lead role of Dr. Asante. After spending 18 years in LA working behind the lens in the music industry,  winning ASCAP FILM & TV Award for her original work on the BET hit show Real Husbands of Hollywood, Harris moved back to her native Pittsburgh, where she has curated and created original music for "The Writer's Landscape," a permanent exhibition at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. The film was shot by cinematographer Haji Muya, a Somali refugee who learned his craft in Pittsburgh, believing that media at its best could do what the city’s famed Fred Rogers suggested, and “make good attractive.”

In Good Hands tackles complex themes of racial bias and equity in the medical field.

“We aim to create positive change through storytelling that highlights the realities and complexities of patient interactions in emergency medicine,” said Dr. Owusu-Ansah, who is also the medical director of Prehospital and Emergency Medicine services at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The film was directed by Nick Buchheit, at the invitation of his friend and collaborator, cinematographer Muya. Buccheit is a filmmaker and co-founder of Covalent, a video production company headquartered in Pittsburgh. He directs commercials and writes for brands ranging from GoDaddy to Big Brothers Big Sisters. After spending over a decade shaping and guiding narratives for corporate America, Buccheit is championing more personal, creative, and socially reflective stories that showcase his passion for grounded performances and emotionally honest narratives, whether serious, strange, or somewhere in between.

In Good Hands was produced by Carl Kurlander, who returned to his hometown to teach after a career as a screenwriter (St. Elmo’s Fire) and TV writer/producer (Saved By the Bell)  He ended up on The Oprah Winfrey Show for leaving Hollywood to teach at the University of Pittsburgh, where he ended up producing a number of award-winning documentaries on the Salk polio vaccine, transplant pioneer Dr. Tom Starzl, and a new film on playwright August Wilson — all Pittsburghers who helped change our world. He is also the founding producer of the Pittsburgh Lens at Pitt’s Center for Creativity, which ran The PITTch Storytelling Initiative.

“We had over 70 entries for PITTch, and what stood out about Dr. Sylvia’s story and Yasmine’s script was how impactful it was, but also how somehow we have yet to see a lead character in a medical drama or movie who is a female African American. Dr. Sylvia’s work to get the Freedom House Ambulance Service story out there and reboot that historic EMS program is inspiring, and it is fitting that when Yasmine was a student at Pitt, she worked on the documentary we are doing on playwright August Wilson, who was also inspired by the compelling stories he found in Pittsburgh,” said Kurlander.