Tag: independent filmmakers

On the second weekend of June this year, the San Francisco Black Film Festival will be celebrating its 19th year by screening over 100 independent Black films in this annual four-day cinema marathon. San Francisco Black Film Festival director Kali O’Ray, son of founder Ave Montague, sits down to discuss how it feels for the festival to celebrate its 19th birthday, the importance of indie films, remaining in a city that was once a lot more chocolate but has been gentrified to 3 percent Black – and more.

Director of the San Francisco Black Film Festival Kali O’Ray has already showed me a number of potential films that are in the running to be selected to be for this year’s festival; great films like “Codigo Color” about colorism in Cuba, “Hustler’s Convention” about some of the greatest protest poets of the last 50 years, the legendary Last Poets, “Tear the Roof Off,” the untold story of Parliament Funkadellic, and “Blackboard,” a movie about Black professional skateboarders.

To all of the filmmakers in the community, the Oakland International Film Festival is accepting submissions until Jan. 30, so if you have something that you want for them to consider, read this article and get your work in. For all the cinema buffs, this festival is one of the premiere events in the Bay Area for you to get your cinematic fix; movies from all over the world from different genres will be screening April 2-5, 2015, at different theaters around the East Bay.

Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi is one of the most prolific filmmakers in the Bay Area when it comes to working with working class people in different nations, most times on different continents, and telling their stories. His films deal with music and social movements in Cuba, Colombia and Ghana. If you are not hip to what he has going on, make sure you check out this interview and check him out at the Fist Up Film Festival. Here is Eli in his own words.

The prestigious Oakland International Film Festival brings hard-to-find films from around the world to the big screens of Oakland and surrounding areas. This year one of the headliners is “Toussaint L’Ouverture,” the movie starring Jimmy Jean-Louis, about one of the fathers of the Haitian Revolution. David Roach is one of the founders and the director of the Oakland International Film Fest. Check him out in his own words about this year’s festival.

Diaunte Thompson is an up and coming name in the Bay Area film world, not just because of his cinema and television directorial work, but also because of Indie Film Night, which he organized, where the work of independent filmmakers can be profiled and appreciated. The first Indie Film Night will be Thursday, Sept. 5, at Leige Spirits Lounge, 481 Ninth St., Oakland, from 6-9 p.m. Check this brotha out in his own words ...

There are two film festivals in the Bay Area that are famous for presenting excellent work by Black filmmakers: the Oakland International Film Festival and the San Francisco Black Film Festival. In a few weeks, thousands of people will be trailing into theaters all over San Francisco to check out what the SF Black Film Fest has deemed some of the best Black indie films of the year.

Ramasses Head has been a pillar of the Oakland film scene for the last half decade at least, with hood classics under his belt like “Town Biz” and “Basketball 3:16.” Now he is premiering his new film, “Watch Phoenix Rise,” at the Oakland International Film Fest on Thursday, April 4, at 2:30 p.m. at the Grand Lake Theater and on Sunday, April 7, at 9 p.m. at the Black Repertory Group Theater in Berkeley.

One of the best events that is held annually in Oakland is the Oakland International Film Festival (OIFF). Since 2002, thousands continue to attend the OIFF each year. Oakland filmmakers and filmmakers from around the world continue to benefit from contacts made during the OIFF. Who will be there this year? Time will tell. Until then, read the words of the founding director of the OIFF David Roach ...