Welcome to Behind the Fest, Backstage’s questionnaire series with film festival figures looking for that next big festival hit. Featuring behind-the-scenes insight from the organizers and programmers at Sundance, TIFF, Cannes, and more fests from around the globe, these tips might just hold the key to your indie film success story!
The annual American Black Film Festival (ABFF) will go fully virtual for its postponed 24th edition of the festival, mirroring other fests and live events amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founded in 1997, ABFF was conceived to strengthen the Black entertainment community by recognizing and showcasing Black talent across film and TV content by and about people of African descent.
In a year full of changes, ABFF Co-Founder Jeff Friday strives to keep those core values of the Miami Beach, Florida fest alive and even more widespread than ever with a targeted global audience of over 100,000. “You don’t have to fly anywhere, and it’s going to be free,” he says, emphasizing the fest’s instant accessibility this year via a dedicated distribution platform that can be used across laptops, phones and even TVs. Backstage spoke with Friday about this year’s festival, running Aug. 21–30, and what ABFF looks for in film submissions.
A Running List of How 2020 Film Festivals Are Handling COVID-19 Tell us about the founding and history of ABFF.
I co-founded the festival 24 years ago this past June. And the inspiration for it, ironically, was a trip to another film festival. I went to Sundance in 1997 to see a film called “Love Jones.” And when I got to Sundance I was very inspired by what was going on. I knew nothing about how festivals were markets for independent film, and the buying and selling of rights related to these movies.
I saw very little diversity. There were few people of color, very few women, primarily white men. But it looked great, it was a great time and a great experience. So I came back to my career in advertising and I decided to start a African American alternative to Sundance, and that’s the history of it.
I really sought out to find out whether mainstream festivals were doing enough to invite people of color, or were there very few movies by people of color. Let’s find out if Black and brown people are making movies, and they just don’t really feel invited to the mainstream festivals like Toronto or Cannes.
Talk about shifting the festival to entirely digital this year.
It’s American Black Film Festival Online Edition, just to make the distinction historically that this will be the year that there’s an online edition. And then futuristically, listen, we expect this to go so well. We’re exceeding my expectations for what we’re going to offer next week. But maybe in the future we’ll have a live version.
We’re anticipating our audience to be more than 100,000 people from around the world because there’s no point of access. You don’t have to fly anywhere, it’s going to be free. And so, maybe at some point in the future it becomes a hybrid between the live and the online version.
I do think it’s going to change the festival business. I don’t think any festival that’s smart is going back to a strictly live version. I just don’t see that happening, now that the cat’s out the bag as it relates to things that could happen in our universe that are so unpredictable. I think more universally, the live events business is changed forever. I think everyone who’s in the live event space is rethinking how they’re going to move forward in the future. Even after we have a vaccine, I don’t think you go back to the old way.
What is the film selection process like? What do you look for in submissions?
The large majority of our films are directed, written, or produced by people of African descent, but you don’t have to be Black to have a movie considered as long as the subject matter is about the Black experience. And this year I think we got somewhere between 600 and 900 submissions. And we have a selection committee of executives and writers, and producers and directors and acquisitions execs who cull through the movies. [This year audiences] could watch 90 movies of all genres and different lengths, and 30 panel discussions for free.
Any advice or wisdom for early-career filmmakers looking to create and submit to a festival?
Come to the festival when you’re just thinking about making a movie so you can meet people. You might meet someone who finances your movie. Just don’t come after your movie’s done—come before the movie’s done in preparation for that process. And then I’d just say, it’s cliché, but the festival is there for you to network.
The festival is really the place that breaks the cycle of how Hollywood functions. When people are away from their offices, their homes, and their kids, they tend to network more. They tend to be more open to doing new things. So my advice and what I tell people is, we do this, we’ve been doing it for 24 years. We do it to support young people, Black and brown people, people who are outside of the mainstream who don’t have relationships. And you have to come and experience it.
What’s a favorite film, or favorite you’ve seen recently?
My favorite old school movie is “Claudine,” with Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones. That was a film I just remember watching and watching as a kid. And it was about family, and Ms. Carroll is someone I idolized, and so that was one. More contemporary film would be “City of God.”
The African American genre is the genre I’m most passionate about. And “Boyz N the Hood,” “Love Jones,” and “Get on the Bus” are my three favorites in that genre.
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