Roderick Lawrence and producer Salma Qarnain of Black Man Films took home the Best Short Feature trophy for Silent Partner at the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival. This marks the 4th Best Short Film award for the film, which also recently won the Best Actor trophy for Roderick Lawrence at the Oscar-qualifying BronzeLens Film Festival of Atlanta, Georgia.
Co-Written and Directed by Aristotle Torres (Story Ave), Silent Partner centers around as Silas Jones (Roderick Lawrence), an accomplished Black trial attorney who successfully defends a white woman who murdered a Black teen. The film explores microaggressions in the workplace and the toll it takes on one’s mental health and family.
Appearing in film festivals from the East to the West Coast and taking audiences through a range of emotions along the way since its premiere at the 2021 Run&Shoot Filmworks Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival, Silent Partner has been highly acclaimed, winning Best Short Film and Best Director Awards at numerous festivals and is a current finalist in the HBO Max® Latino Short Film Competition. The film has earned 17 official festival selections to date, including 4 Oscar-qualifying festival selections, and 7 awards/nominations.
Silent Partner will be available for streaming online through the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival until September 30.
Lawrence has performed across the country and on many New York and LA stages. Co-Founder of Black Man Films, he is a 2020 AUDELCO nominee and a 2022 winner for BEST ACTOR at the BronzeLens Film Festival of Atlanta. His credits include Simba in Disney’s The Lion King National Tour, Ramses in the Broadway-bound The Prince of Egypt, Othello in John Leguizamo’s Othello: The Remix, BeBe Winans in Born for This: The Musical, Floyd Barton in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, and Jesus in Godspell. Lawrence is repped by Kat Hargrave at DGRW.
Torres is a writer / director from The Bronx, NYC. He has built a career directing music videos, experimenting with photography, and telling award-winning stories. He most recently directed, wrote and produced branded content for a global Starbucks campaign and was chosen as a Sundance Film Festival 2019 Feature Film Fellow, developing his debut feature film, Story Ave, which begins production in 2022 and stars Luis Guzmán, with Jamie Foxx and Datari Turner producing.
Qarnain is Pakistani-American actor and producer, who has held senior executive positions across Aerospace, Internet, Entertainment and Education. As a producer, she has earned 30 Helen Hayes Nominations and 9 Awards; as an artist, she is a two-time Helen Hayes Award recipient, an AUDELCO nominee and a member of SAG•AFTRA, AEA and Equity (UK). Credits include Off-Broadway’s Bars and Measures and Acquittal and a recurring role on That Damn Michael Che (HBO Max). B.S., Stanford; S.M., MIT; MBA, Harvard Business School.
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