The Honolulu African American Film Festival 2017 marks Black History Month with an opening-night documentary about poet Maya Angelou, appearances by the co-founders of advocacy group Black Lives Matter, two Academy Award-nominated feature films and seven more movies exploring the black experience in America.

The festival opens Saturday with a reception featuring spoken-word performances, poetry, music, food and drink, followed by the screening of “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,” a film about the poet, writer and activist who became a symbol of overcoming obstacles in the face of oppression. Sexually abused as a child, Angelou did not speak for five years, believing that identifying her attacker led to his death, but she read every book in her school’s library. She worked in the sex industry before turning to acting and dancing, and eventually turned to writing.

Angelou’s best-selling autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” became a mainstay in classrooms across the country and led to work in film, theater and television, teaching and lecturing, including an appearance at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. “It’s hard not to be inspired by a life this well lived,” said The New York Times in a review of the film.

The film screens at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. Hawaii poet Kathryn Waddell Takara will perform a poem written for Angelou at the Sunday screening.

Politics is not a stated focus of this year’s festival — many of the films concern women’s lives and issues — but the recent election is likely to be a topic of discussion at a Feb. 11 event, “Art & Racial Justice: A Conversation With Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, Co-founders of Black Lives Matter.” The event begins at 1 p.m.

Cullors, speaking by phone from Los Angeles just as President Donald Trump was announcing his ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, was critical of the president, saying her efforts are aimed at denying him a second term and ensuring “our communities are actually sanctuaries from him.”

“I think the last few days have been testament of where the Trump administration is willing to go,” she said. “He’s been touting racist, xenophobic, sexist messages since his campaign, and he’s actually putting them into practice. It’s a frightening time.”

Cullors, who has visited the islands previously, noted the importance of Hawaii’s history of colonialism and invasion. Commenting on Clinton’s apology for the annexation of the islands, she said, “An apology is never enough.”

A performance artist, Cullors has addressed subjects like the incarceration of blacks (her father and brother were both imprisoned), state violence against blacks, and gay rights through a blend of dance, theater, readings and audience participation. She and others at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement were spurred to activism after the 2012 killing of black youth Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of defendant George Zimmerman.

For the African American Film Festival, Cullors will include stories of the struggles of the African-American community here in Hawaii, and examine how she has integrated that into her work.

“I’ll be talking about how you use art to have deeper conversations about the daily traumas that black people face,” she said.

While Hawaii does not have a large population of blacks, she said she’ll also reach out to Native Hawaiians, with an eye to “finding areas where our interests overlap and where they don’t.”

“It’s about building bridges with new communities,” Cullors said. “As we know, there’s no way we can fight a Trump administration with just Black Lives Matter. We need all hands on deck, and we need to be building across race, religion, class and gender.”

Alicia Garza joins Cullors at the film festival. Garza, a writer who is of Mexican and African-American descent, has worked on issues such as access to health care and civil rights for students, domestic workers and transgender people of color, as well as police brutality and racism.

The Feb. 11 discussion by Garza and Cullors precedes a screening of the Oscar-nominated film “I Am Not Your Negro,” a documentary based on 30 pages of a book that writer James Baldwin had completed when he died in 1987. The book was about Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., all of whom were friends of Baldwin who were victims of assassination.

Cullors also appears Feb. 12 for the screening of “13th,” a film about the prison system and how it promotes racial inequality in the United States. The event is at 7 p.m. and is free.

Women are the focus of several feature films

Festival films focusing on the experience of African-American women are:

“Miss Sharon Jones!” (1 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday) details the life of the soul-singer who was told she was “too short, too fat, too black and too old” but prevailed to cause a sensation as high-voltage frontwoman of the Dap Kings, earning a Grammy nomination. The film chronicles Jones’ battle with pancreatic cancer.

“Daughters of the Dust,” (1 and 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 10) is an acclaimed drama about the Gullah people, the descendants of slaves who inhabit the Sea Island off South Carolina. The film was called “one of the most distinctive, original independent films of the time” by the The New Yorker.

“Loving,” (1 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday) tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple whose marriage and subsequent arrest resulted in the Supreme Court ruling overturning state bans on interracial marriage. Ruth Negga has been nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Mildred Loving in this intimate story of romance amid turmoil.

Closing-night film “Harriet’s Return: Based on the Legendary Life of Harriet Tubman” (7:30 p.m. Feb. 17) is a film version of Karen Jones Meadows’ one-woman play about the famous conductor of the Underground Railroad.