Scenes from Dark and Tender: The Big Island, a follow-up to the award-winning documentary about the transformative power of touch (Image: The Chronically UnderTouched Project)

The 23rd annual Seattle Black Film Festival takes place April 30 – May 3 at the Langston Hughes Center, showcasing 55 films and four workshops throughout the event. 

Seattle has its own bustling film scene, with the Langston Hughes Center at the heart of it.

The 23rd annual Seattle Black Film Festival kicks off next week with an opening night party on Thursday, April 30th. A steadily growing event, this year’s festival will screen 55 independent films from all across the world, centering and celebrating the community.

This year’s theme is ‘The Sound of Us,’ highlighting the voices and creativity of the Black diaspora, with a nod to its setting in the Puget Sound region.

Taylor Freeman, Programs Manager for the Langston Hughes Center and SBFF Manager, is in her second year running the event, and her passion and drive behind the festival is apparent.

“Our festival focus has always been to be responsive to community needs,” said Freeman. “If there’s anything I can do to help build up Seattle’s creative community, I and Langston want to be able to do our part.”

In addition to the screenings, SBFF will offer four workshops throughout the weekend, as well as social events centered around community building and all kinds of creative expression.

Programming is developed to both showcase and expand filmmaking opportunities, providing a learning space for attendees to learn and strengthen necessary skills for the industry, such as editing or pitching.

An actor herself, Freeman and the team hope to both cultivate and grow the creative filmmaking community here in Seattle. “We want folks to not have to feel like they have to go to New York or LA,” said Freeman. The centering of community in the programming shows the dedication to that mission.

On Sunday, the film festival will be free, providing the greater community the chance to come be a part of screenings and workshops.

As a part of the ‘Tender is a Revolution’ block that day, the Chronically UnderTouched (CUT) Project will be hosting a workshop following the screening of films, including its own, “Dark and Tender: The Big Island.”

A sequel to their first documentary “Dark and Tender,” which screened at last year’s festival, this film follows ten Black men at a week-long workshop building trust and intimacy through grounding exercises such as platonic touch, listening, and journaling practices. These documentaries offer viewers the opportunity to explore what tenderness looks and feels like in practice.

Ben Wilson, co-founder of Color of Sound and producer on the films, was initially a participant in one such workshop with CUT Project founder, Aaron Johnson. After the workshop, Wilson knew he wanted to support Johnson’s documentary and has been a creative partner ever since.

“Part of the feedback we got from the first project [Dark and Tender] was that people wanted to be more immersed in the actual workshops,” said Wilson.

Centering empathy, both the documentary and workshop offer accessible practices to support healthy relationships and combat negative and harmful stereotypes faced by people of color, and especially by Black men.

This sequel documentary offers that more immersive experience, which Wilson believes will help prime audiences for the subsequent workshop.

“There’s this universal concept of touch and platonic touch, and that many of us suffer a lack of platonic touch and have our own unique stories,” said Wilson. “The goal is to help these Black men in this case to start to get in touch more with their tender side, to build empathy, to help them to be better listeners.”

Both Freeman and the SBFF team encourage everyone to come with an open mind, ready to have fun, and be in community.

“We are resilient when we are together,” said Freeman. “Even when we are separated and are going through hard times, we can come back to the sound of us.”

Tickets range from $25 to $135, with a virtual pass option allowing the opportunity for viewers to watch these films from May 4th to 10th.

The Langston Hughes Center is located in Seattle’s Central District at 104 17th Ave S. Learn more at langstonseattle.org.

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The biggest restaurateur on Capitol Hill is chef Heong Soon Park who is preparing to open his fourth food and drink venture in the neighborhood with Sea’d In inside Chophouse Row.

Park’s newest concept will bring fresh Pacific Northwest seafood to the Row’s inner restaurant space and courtyard, replacing wine bar Light Sleeper after its closure earlier this year.

Sea’d In will join a mix of food and drink in the 11th Ave development including the elevated Vietnamese of Xóm and the comfortable Tailwind Cafe at Good Weather Bikes.

The refined seafood venture is a prime example of Park’s continued growth in the neighborhood as he takes over a fantastic space in a grade “A” location and fills it with thoughtfully rendered concepts and farm-fresh ingredients.

His most recent Capitol Hill reboot came last year on E Pike where he opened  Gol Mok Korean Market Bar, a new start for the Taku space created by Seattle celebrity chef Shota Nakajima.

In 2024, Park took on the reinvention of a space that had been home to a much deeper rooted Capitol Hill food legend with the transformation that saw Park’s Grana Padano and Parmesan-laden Cheese Room take over the longtime Melrose at Pine home of Machiavelli as its ownership decided to focus on its Edmonds location.

Other recent acquisitions include restarts in West Seattle including the Luna Park Cafe.

Park’s restarts aren’t shallow imitations. He has been part of the Seattle dining scene for 20 years and owns Chan, now in the Paramount Hotel downtown, and the Bacco Café in Pike Place Market.

Starting with Bacco Cafe in 2008, Park has grown his businesses incrementally, able to use the success with established projects to finance newer, more ambitious concepts. Ownership of an organic farm in Woodinville has also provided a boost.

Park’s first venture in Capitol Hill’s restaurant scene continues. Meet Korean BBQ has been part of Capitol Hill since its inauspicious opening in the winter of 2020 only weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns hit. CHS talked with Park here about surviving that tough start and growing Meet’s refined approach to Korean barbecue on E Pike.

Now, Meet, Gol Mok, and Cheese Room await their new Capitol Hill sibling set to take its place inside Chophouse Row.

Sea’d In will open soon inside Chophouse Row at 1124 11th Ave. Learn more at seadinseattle.com.

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Thousands will again fill Cal Anderson Park this week for May Day.

Labor unions, worker and immigrant rights groups, and community groups are planning Friday’s International Workers’ Day rally and march to once again start in Capitol Hill’s central park.

“Join the fight, as workers, immigrants, and migrants unite at Seattle’s 2026 May Day rally and march,” the local Teamsters 117 group says in its notice to members:

May Day – International Workers’ Day – is a day born from the labor struggles of working people right here in the United States. Seattle has a proud and living history of workers and communities taking collective action, and history teaches us that when workers unite across race, language, sector, and background, we are unstoppable.

“The struggle for dignity, justice, and democracy has always been won in the streets – not the boardrooms,” it concludes.

The city’s march moved to a Cal Anderson start in 2025 and continued a string of enthusiastic and mostly peaceful May 1st events in Seattle following years of intense clashes between police and demonstrators pushed onto the streets of Capitol Hill.

Last year, crowds grew from the noontime rally with hundreds of workers from multiple unions and labor groups joining hundreds and hundreds more from community and activist groups. Plenty also showed up to protest the second Trump administration and the White House’s ongoing worker cuts in key science, health, safety, and transportation departments and attacks on spending on federal programs. Earlier that Thursday, students joined faculty in a walk-out at nearby Seattle Central to protest budget cuts.

Organizers had private security on hand to help with safety. A robust car and bike brigade was also on hand to help protect the march as it moved through the city. The Seattle Police Department said it was staffing to “provide safety and security for our community members during the upcoming May Day events.” In addition to a large contingent of bike officers, members of the Police Outreach Engagement Team were also on hand.

This year’s event is expected to draw larger crowds as it falls on a Friday. Weather is expected to be around a cloudy 62 F.

Organizers are calling for a “national day of action.”

We’re joining a national day of action calling for No Work, No School, and No Shopping on May 1, 2026. Together we want to send these three messages:
– Communities, Not ICE
– Workers, Not Billionaires
– Services, Not War

Multiple organizations are organizing the event according to seattlemayday.org including SEIU 775, SEIU 6, UFCW, 3000, UAW, the MLK Labor Council, Local 8, the Washington State Labor Council, Casa Latina, Bayan Washington, Working Washington, and Starbucks Workers United. The Latino Community Fund is serving as fiscal sponsor.

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From Zachary Pullin, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much we all carry.

My best friend is Iranian, and I’ve watched him hold the weight of this unjust war. I’ve recently gone through heartbreak. My dad and I haven’t spoken in a long time.

I know I can’t be the only one.

CAPITOL HILL COMMUNITY POSTS 
Have a Capitol Hill related issue people should know about? Anybody can post on CHS. Contact chs@capitolhillseattle.com to learn more.

If you look around your apartment building, your block, in your group chats, or at your workplace, everyone is carrying something. Big or small, visible or not.

Underneath it all, I imagine there’s a simple truth: most of us are looking for similar things. A quiet need to be seen, heard, and connected to other people in a real way. To feel steady in a constantly moving world.

I grew up watching Mister Rogers, and I keep coming back to something he once said that stuck with me; your neighbor is anyone you happen to be with, at any moment in your life.

And the hardest kind of love is often the kind we have to give ourselves first.

Because that’s where it starts. If we can find even a little bit of that steadiness in ourselves, it becomes a lot easier to offer it to someone else.

That’s what Neighbor Day is about.

On May 2, people across Seattle will take small steps to connect with people around them. Not in big, complicated ways, either. Just simple, human moments. Saying hello. Learning a name. Offering to help someone out. Sharing a meal. Checking in.

Yes, there is certainly the option for bigger things as well like block parties, potlucks, neighborhood cleanups, and P-Patch Garden gatherings — and those are great! But they aren’t necessarily the heart of Neighbor Day.

The heart is right where you are.

Neighbor Day is in the hallway of your building. On your sidewalk. Your front step.

And this year, there’s one really easy way to start that I’m excited about: your local fire station.

On May 2, from 1-3 PM, Seattle fire stations are opening their doors to community. You can meet firefighters, check out the trucks – or “rigs” as they’re called – and even get a cool sticker. But more than anything, it’s a chance to meet your neighbors in a space that’s already a part of our community.

For those of us in Capitol Hill, that means Seattle Fire Station #25.

So, if you’re not sure where to begin on May 2, start there. Stop by. Say hi. Stay a few minutes. Introduce yourself to the people inside and the other neighbors passing through.

Because right now, connection matters more than ever. It doesn’t start somewhere far away.

It starts right next door. It starts with you.

You can learn even more at www.seattle.gov/neighbor-day

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