Haile Gerima has made his longest film yet. Black Lions – Roman Wolves runs 623 minutes across five parts and examines Ethiopia's military and cultural resistance to Italy's invasion of 1935. The film's North American premiere arrives at BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia from August 6 through 9.
The documentary premiered at the Berlinale in February 2026. It is Gerima's first feature since 2008.
Shot in Amharic and constructed from archival footage and eyewitness interviews, the film traces a war fought not only with arms but through memory and cultural survival. Co-produced with Skirikiana Gerima, edited by Gerima himself, and with sound design by Merawi Gerima, Black Lions is a family undertaking in its structure as much as its subject.
BlackStar, now in its 15th year, will screen all five parts across four days at the Philadelphia Film Society, closing with a final presentation at the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center. The festival focuses on independent cinema from the global majority and is presenting 91 films from more than 30 countries this year.
Gerima is already at work on what comes next. According to Deadline, he is currently editing a documentary on the Maroons: communities of armed Africans who resisted enslavement across the American South and into Florida, often in alliance with Native Americans. The project had been set aside while Black Lions was completed and is now back in progress.
