Film 4 Good Fund has selected Silent Partner, a legal thriller examining systemic racism, as its flagship feature film investment, marking a significant milestone for both the impact-focused nonprofit and Black Man Films, the Harlem-based production company behind the project.
Silent Partner centers on a Black defense attorney facing an impossible moral choice: mounting a vigorous defense for a white woman who killed a Black teenager under the state’s stand-your-ground law. The film explores power, complicity, integrity, family and legacy. It is currently in final post-production and targeting delivery in summer 2026.
The film marks the directorial debut of Eric Branco, ASC, the acclaimed cinematographer behind the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Clemency, The Forty-Year-Old Version and Chasing Summer. He directs a cast led by Roderick Lawrence alongside Susan Heyward, Shoshana Bean, Eric Nelsen, Jeff Perry, Stephen Hill and Karen Aldridge.
Film 4 Good Fund was founded by Kareem Alston-Rosales to address a critical gap in film financing, providing final-stage funding that allows diverse independent filmmakers to complete their projects. The nonprofit prioritizes stories championing racial and economic justice, gender equity, LGBTQIA+ representation, disability inclusion, climate justice, and Indigenous and immigrant voices. Its board and advisory council include Eric Ward of Race Forward, actor and activist Diane Guerrero, cultural strategist Jeff Chang and Ellen Oh of Stanford Arts.
“Silent Partner is a film about systems,” said Alston-Rosales. “It’s about how law, race, and power intersect in ways that destroy lives. Supporting this film isn’t just about distributing money, it’s about backing filmmakers who trust audiences to understand complexity, nuance, and the real cost of injustice.”
Black Man Films was founded in 2020 by Lawrence and Harvard Business School graduate Salma Qarnain with a mission to develop and produce films centering Black, Brown and POC talent on both sides of the camera. “This partnership with Film 4 Good Fund represents something we don’t see enough: institutional support for Black filmmakers telling stories about race that don’t flatten complexity or shy away from difficult questions,” said Qarnain.