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By Indie Means Necessary

The BlackStar Film Festival is an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and of global indigenous communities, showcasing films by black people from around the world.

Twitter

@BlackStarFest - 1 hour

RT @washingtonpost: Smithsonian’s new film festival offers opportunity — and hope — to filmmakers of color https://t.co/WntGTE0a9f

@BlackStarFest - 21 hours

RT @shadowandact: .@TaranaBurke plans to work with writing rooms on how they portray sexual abuse onscreen https://t.co/BDx9tnBjCE https://…

Instagram

  • “There are many different people who are describing their work as Afrobubblegum, which just means that we are allowing ourselves as filmmakers and as artists to be frivolous — allowing ourselves to tell non-serious, issues-driven films and non-agenda films. We use imaginations first and, above all else, tell joyful and hopeful stories about ourselves as Africans. It's incredibly important for us to say that joy is important and, actually, as silly as it sounds, to try and take joy more seriously when it comes to contextualizing Africa and African content. With Rafiki, Afrobubblegum was present because we showed joy. We showed how they were in love, how they were playful, and how they were... There wasn’t anything crazy about them. It was just: they fell in love. It means a lot to show that basic, everyday, joyful, hopeful things happen on our side of the world, especially in Nairobi, because that’s what I know. That’s the place I know best and that’s the life I’ve experienced — surrounded by people who are full of hope and joy.” — @wanuri, Director of @rafiki_movie . . 📷: @tiff_net / Andréanne Gauthier
  • “That line between producing and directing? I didn’t even know what that was! I’ve slowly had to learn that, you know? Definitely the line between writing and directing, composing and directing. Editing and directing. All those things, I think, are more about how capitalism existed before movies and how the process of making movies had to retrofit themselves into the idea of what making a product was, which is an assembly line. And I think that when you’re approaching it from an art-first perspective, the assembly line aspect only has so much utility. So, it’s not so much “choosing to wear different hats,” it’s more like, the hat I happen to have on when viewing from a capitalistic context seems like a lot of hats, but it’s really just one hat.” — Terence Nance (@terenceetc) on working on @randomactshbo as told to @saintheron
  • “I think that the first time I picked up that camera, I thought, ‘Oh, O.K. This is my tool. This is it,’” — Carrie Mae Weems. . . . 📷: 1. Photograph by @MickaleneThomas. Styled by @shionat for @nytimes —————————————————————- 2. The singer Eartha Kitt.” Credit Carrie Mae Weems, “Slow Fade to Black #1 (Eartha),” 2009-2010. © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
  • @mahershalaali will star in season 3 of HBO’s #TrueDetective which will start airing on January 13, 2019. Swipe to see a first look of Ali as Detective Wayne Hays. TD3 is set in the Ozarks and takes place over multiple decades, focusing on a “macabre crime.” . . Source: @vulture
  • Director Stella Meghie is on board to direct, “American Princess,” a comedy starring Issa Rae. The film centers on an American woman (@IssaRae) who moves to London, where she’s drawn into a world of wealth and high society and falls in love in a very unexpected way. The script was written by Amy Aniobi (@janiobi), a scribe who has worked with Rae on #Insecure as a writer/co-executive producer. ______________________________________________ @stellameghie made her feature directorial debut with “Jean of the Joneses,” which earned her a first screenplay nomination at the 2017 Independent Spirit Awards. Her most recent film, “The Weekend,” premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Meghie is developing “The Photograph,” a family drama, with producer Will Packer (@willpowerpacker) at Universal. ______________________________________________ Source: @hollywoodreporter 📷: Maarten de Boer for @variety; @tiff_net / Andréanne Gauthier
  • “I would love the opportunity as an actor to be able to just get down and dirty in a project that has myself, Thandie Newton, Viola Davis, and Alfre Woodard. I don’t know what the hell that is, but I know that is powerful right there. The fact that I’m in a place of power that I can help make that happen [means] I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.” — @iamreginaking, as told to @variety. . . 📷: @tiff_net / Andréanne Gauthier
  • “In thinking about what I wanted to do for a first feature, I decided that I wanted to go back to my roots and do something that’s truthful. I thought about my favorite first features and what’s attainable, that I could do with basically no money. “Amores Perros” came up as a film that I love, and that got me thinking about the idea of perspective and how I would take that conversation that I had and add something to the short film. That’s what led me down this pathway of, what can I do that can add to that conversation? That’s how the triptych structure was born. We don’t really have triptych movies that focus on black and brown people, so I thought this would be really interesting. It also played on that perspective. So, I started looking at movies, like “Amores Perros” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” to see where and how they transitioned. I went through a process, investigating my own interest level in these characters, each pulled from different people or scenarios in my life, to come up with what you see in the film.” — Reinaldo Marcus Green, Director of @monstersandmenfilm __________________________________________ Pulled straight from recent headlines, "Monsters and Men" follows three black men as their lives are impacted by the death of another black man by a white police officer. Anthony Ramos and John David Washington play a new father who recorded the death and black cop in the same precinct as the shooter, respectively. The cast also includes Chanté Adams, Nicole Beharie and Rob Morgan.
  • Missed out on getting your #BlackStar18 catalog during the festival? Grab one at @theundergroundmuseum in LA, @ulisesbooks in Philly or @sankofadc in DC! _____________________________________ ⠀ The catalog features conversations with directors Haile Gerima, Reina Gossett, Nijla Mu’min, Naima Ramos-Chapman and Darius Clark Monroe. Reviews of Under Bone, Two Parts Black, Random Acts of Flyness, Fucked Like a Star and Mr. Soul!