Through its longtime focus of highlighting films focused on civil rights, March On! Festival works to combat challenges and offer hope for the future. This year, under the theme “March On! Health: The Right to Be Well” — meshing the arts and wellness — the festival presented filmmakers, creatives, lawmakers and special speakers, working toward social equity for all.
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Twenty-five years ago, Lifetime Achievement Award honorees Nelson and Smith co-founded Firelight Media, chronicling African American history and culture with films about HBCUs, the Freedom Riders, the murder of Emmett Till, the Black Panthers, and many more.
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) presented the couple with the March On! Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith are so important. Stanley Nelson is an Emmy award-winning and MacArthur Genius Fellow documentary filmmaker,” said Frost. “Marcia is president of Firelight Media. She is a producer and writer for documentaries and steers mentorship, funding and artistic development for Firelight.”
Before Nelson, director of “We Want the Funk” (2025), and Smith came to the podium, Frost emphasized that many of the Firelight documentaries received funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which recently had their funding cut by Congress.
Screened before the gala at Angelika Pop Up at Union Market, Nelson’s “We Want the Funk” is his latest documentary about the evolution of funk music with interviews from George Clinton, Christian McBride, and Marcus Miller.
The title of the movie is from the Parliament/Funkadelic hit and was used to bring Nelson and Smith to the stage as the audience clapped, swayed, and sang to the beat.
“It was a real honor to be able to make these films,” said Nelson about Firelight’s catalog of documentaries. “This is a festival with a purpose.”
Considering the challenges Black and marginalized communities are facing, Smith noted “these are not the easiest times,” but emphasized the power of pushing toward love, justice and joy through art in effecting change.
“We are trying to do our part,” she said.
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