Redefining Storytelling for Liberated Futures

A Portal into Story, Power, and Future-Making

Every other year, 50,000+ people flood into New Haven for the iconic Harvard-Yale game—but until now, there’s been little for artists, storytellers, and visionary thinkers to gather around.

NOIR FEST is changing that.

Taking place during Harvard-Yale Weekend, NOIR FEST is a four-day activation of film, technology, art, and radical imagination. We are curating stories that liberate, platforms that connect, and experiences that help us code a more just, beautiful world—together.

This year’s theme—Art as Cultural Software—recognizes that stories are more than entertainment. They are systems. They are code. They shape how we live, what we build, and who benefits. Through screenings, workshops, salons, installations, and digital experiences, we explore how to write better code for the world we’re creating.

What to Expect

• Visionary films from across the Diaspora and beyond

• Hands-on workshops with technologists, filmmakers, and cultural designers

• Superpower exchanges that match creators, thinkers, and organizers to one another

• Public installations + private salons

• Digital experiences via Portal X that help guests find films, find each other, and activate new futures

Rooted in New Haven and reaching globally, NOIR FEST exists to celebrate, gather, and equip those who believe art isn’t just a mirror—it’s a tool. A forcefield. A seed.

Come experience what happens when story meets structure, and when Black imagination meets a city becoming the Silicon Valley for the Arts.

If you’d like to be a parter in delivering on this vision, please email us at team@noirlabs.org. We are currently confirming partners across local community organizations, New Haven institutions, media and industry.

Submissions will be open soon.