American Black Film Festival Online For 2020

{At ABFF 2019, Pictured with Method Man and Tim Story}

June is the month I look forward to for so many reasons. It's my absolute favorite person in the world birthday, my mom {big smile}, it's the start of summer and it is the month that I take my yearly pilgrimage to South Beach Miami to cover the American Black Film Festival {ABFF.} It truly is a pilgrimage as each year holds something exciting and new for me to learn about myself, Black Hollywood and many of its talented and aspiring newcomers and up and comers.

The first time I attended ABFF it was by total accident. My then husband and I decided to get away to South Beach and happened upon the film festival just walking by a venue where we saw a couple of celebrities and inquired about what was taking place. That year we met the directors of Mississippi Damned. The indie film starred new comer and now house hold name and star of Men In Black 3, Creed and more, Tessa Thompson. I still can't believe that was 11 years ago, wow. We enjoyed a few more films, many of which included conversations with the directors, writers and actors. We loved it so much we vowed to each other that we'd do our best to make our summer trip to South Beach around the time of ABFF.

{Click Photo For Golden#YearOfNoFear Post}

I did a little bit of writing for the college newspaper during the time I attended Kennesaw State University in Georgia and later did some writing for my hometown's local Black newspaper, the Chattanooga News Chronicle. I forget how the decision was made, but I end up at the film festival to not only watch films, but to also cover the festival for the Chattanooga News Chronicle. It later led to my doing interviews of some of my favorite entertainers in the world. I had never interviewed any one in my life, but was asked one year if we'd like to do some interviews. I was so nervous just at the question, but figured "why not." And I am so happy that I did and so grateful to the ABFF family for the opportunity. Everything inside me wanted to say no because I'm just so shy and had no idea what to ask, say, do, but I was surprisingly not as nervous as I thought I'd be, and that yes, kind of changed my life. After saying yes to the opportunity at ABFF, I gained a renewal of my old self confidence, started to study how to conduct interviews while being myself and engaging both those I was interviewing as well as the audience who would see the footage. I also picked up my old love of photography and in addition to doing the interviews was given the opportunity to photo shoot the red carpet events at the festival. I'm looking forward to soon becoming a sole freelancer and doing all of these many things that I love and that makes me so happy.

{Rekindling My Passions at 44}

 

I can't lie, I was a little broken hearted at the announcement that the American Black Film Festival would not take place this year. The June date was rescheduled to October, however with the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 this Fall, founder Jeff Friday shared in a letter earlier this month that the October date would best be cancelled {read Jeff Friday's statement here.}Excitingly there will be an online film festival taking place this year August 21 - 30. Click here to stay tuned for all of the upcoming announcements, schedules and more. This year's theme is Community First and will focus some of the festival's attention on Covid-19 and how it is affecting the Black community, along with advocating for social change in regards to our country's devastating racial injustices. I am looking forward to what this brilliant team of organizers and brilliant Black artists will share. It's going to be amazing.