Documentarians Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith have been selected as Black Public Media’s 2026 Trailblazers.

The married duo, filmmakers and co-founders of Firelight Media, will receive BPM’s most prestigious honor at the PitchBLACK Awards on April 30. That ceremony will also honor the winners of the PitchBLACK Forum, America’s largest pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists creating Black content.

Director Nelson (pictured left) and writer-producer Marcia Smith (right) have an acclaimed filmography of documentaries that has helped shape modern documentary storytelling and the field around it, pairing films with lasting infrastructure that helps other artists thrive.

Nelson is widely regarded as a leading chronicler of the African American experience in non-fiction film, work that has earned him a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, a Peabody recognizing his body of work and the National Medal in the Humanities. Smith, meanwhile, has helped advance documentary filmmaking as a writer, producer and nonprofit leader, earning recognition for her work and leadership including a Writers Guild Award, a Muse Award and BlackStar’s Luminary Award.

Through Firelight’s Documentary Lab, the pair have helped launch the careers of more than 100 non-fiction and documentary filmmakers of color and built Firelight into a nationally respected home for non-fiction work by and about communities of color.

“Not only has Marcia and Stanley’s prolific body of work set superior standards for the field and blessed the world with a plethora of important African American stories, their dedication to creating new opportunities for other underrepresented and underserved media makers has made it possible for the industry to grow in ways that better reflect its increasingly diverse audiences,” said Black Public Media executive director Leslie Fields-Cruz in a statement. “Black Public Media is thrilled to bestow our highest award on these two independent media titans.”

In honor of Nelson and Smith’s accomplishments, BPM will present a two-week online retrospective of their films, running from April 27 through May 10. The retrospective may include We Want the Funk! (2025), The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015), Freedom Riders (2010), Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple (2007), A Place of Our Own (2004), The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind (2000), The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (1999) and Two Dollars and a Dream (1989).

Read more at Realscreen.

(Photos: Stephanie Berger)