Culture & Perspective

What Isisara
finds noteworthy.

The films, books, and theatre that shape how she sees the world — curated by a woman who has spent her life at the intersection of culture, justice, and the human story.

Short Films

Films worth
your time.

Curated by the Artistic Director of the March on Washington Film Festival — short films that illuminate the human condition in under 30 minutes. Each one selected because it moved her, challenged her, or showed her something she hadn't seen before.

Documentary

13th

Ava DuVernay's documentary exploring the intersection of race, justice, and mass incarceration. Essential viewing for understanding America.

Dir. Ava DuVernay · 2016
Short Film

Hair Love

Matthew A. Cherry's Oscar-winning short about a father learning to do his daughter's hair. Six minutes of pure love.

Dir. Matthew A. Cherry · 2019
Documentary Short

A Concerto Is a Conversation

A grandson and grandfather in conversation, framed around the composition of a piano concerto. About memory, jazz, and what we pass on.

Dir. Ben Proudfoot · 2021
Isisara's Work

March on Washington Film Festival

As Artistic Director, Isisara curates and presents films that speak to justice, memory, and the ongoing project of American democracy.

Visit the festival →
Books

Books that
changed me.

From James Baldwin to contemporary memoir — the books Isisara reads, returns to, and presses into the hands of everyone she meets. Not a reading list. A personal reckoning.

Novel · Identity

Giovanni's Room

Baldwin at his most devastating — a novel about desire, exile, and the cost of refusing to know yourself. One of the great American novels.

James Baldwin · 1956
Memoir · Activism

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou's account of her early life is a masterclass in survival, grace, and the transformative power of language and story.

Maya Angelou · 1969
Non-fiction · Culture

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a letter to his son about what it means to inhabit a Black body in America. Urgent, lyrical, necessary.

Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015
Theatre & Plays

The stage
endures.

On live performance — why theatre is one of the last truly communal experiences, and the plays she believes everyone should encounter at least once in their lives.

Play · History

A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry's masterwork remains as vital today as it was in 1959. A family. A dream. The weight of what America promises and withholds.

Lorraine Hansberry · 1959
Musical · Legacy

Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda's reframing of the founding mythology — who tells America's story, and who gets left out of it. Electrifying and infuriating in the best way.

Lin-Manuel Miranda · 2015
Play · Identity

For Colored Girls...

Ntozake Shange's choreopoem is not a play — it's a ritual. A homecoming. Every Black woman who encounters it recognizes herself on that stage.

Ntozake Shange · 1975