Source: J. Countess / Getty
Black star power was alive and well at the the 21st annual Urbanworld Film Festival this past weekend. The five-day event, which took place at the AMC theater in New York City’s Times Square, had an impressive roster of narrative features, documentaries, film shorts, and staged screenplay readings.
Urbanworld, founded in 1997 by Stacy Spikes, compiles a yearly offering of projects that highlight filmmakers across the globe. “Our 2017 slate of films reflect an even deeper variety of content including animation shorts, web originals, and music videos in response to the changing landscape inspired by the cross-cultural community of makers and innovators,” Gabrielle Glore, festival director and head of programming for Urbanworld, told CASSIUS.
This year’s festival ambassador was director Reginald Hudlin, who screened his latest feature: Marshall, starring Chadwick Boseman, Sterling K. Brown, Kate Hudson, and Josh Gad. Boseman plays the legendary Thurgood Marshall, who faces one of his most challenging cases—defending a Black chauffeur driver (Brown) who is accused of rape and attempted murder by his white employer (Hudson). Brown, who recently won Leading Actor/Drama Emmy for his performance on the NBC freshman hit This Is Us, encouraged audiences to support the powerful biopic, saying, “Be the change you want to be in the world.”
Jamie Broadnax, creator of the popular website BlackGirlNerds, was featured in Gina Hara’s documentary Geek Girls. Hara interviewed various women who inhabit the male-dominated geek culture. She shared that due to the rampant harassment women face, certain prominent women gamers and cosplayers declined to participate in the project. Hara said, “My producer said it was important for me to include this information on camera, so people can understand what these women face in the nerd community.”
‘What I wanted was not to be alone. I wanted a crew that looked like the United Nations. I know what it’s like to walk on set and be the only Black person, the only woman. So what I wanted for women directors coming on—I didn’t want them to feel that way.’
Ava DuVernay, an alumni of the Urbanworld film festival and last year’s ambassador, showed the mid-season premiere of the critically acclaimed Queen Sugar alongside stars Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, and Omar Dorsey. In an emotional Q&A panel moderated by Michaela Angela Davis, DuVernay explained why she insisted on employing such an inclusive behind-the-camera crew, which includes all women directors. “What I wanted was not to be alone. I wanted a crew that looked like the United Nations. I know what it’s like to walk on set and be the only Black person, the only woman. So what I wanted for women directors coming on—I didn’t want them to feel that way.”
Siriboe, who plays Ralph Angel Bordelon on the show, expressed his gratitude to DuVernay for letting him explore the nuances and complexity of Black masculinity. “I’ve never seen myself [as a Black man] cry on TV…. We have to be able to acknowledge that we’re not okay.”
Director Jerry LaMothe, another Urbanworld alum, celebrated the 10th anniversary of his feature film Blackout with a special Saturday night screening. Blackout is a fictionalized account of the 2003 New York City blackout and how it impacted residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood. The film boasts an impressive cast including Zoe Saldana, Michael B. Jordan, Jeffrey Wright and Melvin Van Peebles. When introducing his film, LaMothe recounted his earlier days when he tried to break into the business. After a failed attempt to audition for John Singleton’s remake of “Shaft,” LaMothe came took fate into his own hands. “I decided right then and there I wouldn’t let anyone tell me no. A year later I came back.”
For a list of all films shown at Urbanworld, check out a full list of selections here.
