Miracle Workers
The American Black Film Festival Offers Opportunities for Aspiring Filmmakers to Beat the Odds

 “We are always at the bottom rung of the ladder, and we will always be there struggling. You’ve got to hold on.” — Cicely Tyson

One of the many films featured at this year’s American Black Film Festival in Miami was Maurice Jamal’s Dirty Laundry, featuring clockwise from top right, Terri J. Vaughn, Jenifer Lewis and panelist Loretta Devine, who won the festival’s “Best Performance by an Actor” nod.

 
Kimberly Elise, a working film and TV actress since the mid-’90s, told ABFF panel attendees to “go with your own instinct.” Photo by Getty Images/stringer

BY CELESTE FRASER DELGADO

The first young lady in line to ask a question following the panel called “Empowering Black Women to Succeed in Hollywood” at the American Black Film Festival last Saturday had a confession to make. “I played so many games to come down here,” she announced, looking conspiratorially around the hall at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. “I even wrote a bad check,” she joked, “but don’t tell nobody.” As the laughter died down, she gushed with praise for each of the panelists: moderator and host of the television show Access Hollywood, Shaun Robinson; producer and screenwriter Suzanne de Passe; creator and executive producer of the UPN hit show Girlfriends, Mara Brock Akil; and the actresses Kimberly Elise, Loretta Devine and Cicely Tyson. After telling the story of how she had tried unsuccessfully to find a manager to promote her career as a talk show host, followed by another round of sympathetic laugher, she asked de Passe what she had to do to get someone to believe in her.

“That’s a tricky enterprise,” de Passe answered. As a young woman working for Berry Gordy at Motown, de Passe co-wrote the Diana Ross star vehicle Lady Sings the Blues, which was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay in 1972. In her late 50s, she is now the head of her own production company, currently working on a pair of films with best-selling African-American erotic novelist Zane. Looking at this passionate young woman and the 300 or so other young black women like her in the audience, de Passe discussed the difficulty of finding a manager who will support an aspiring talent and about what she called the “educational” process of casting. Then she finished with an observation on the difficulty of the film industry as whole: “Even the worst movie, the worst television show, you’ve ever seen is a miracle.”

The goal of the ABFF is to make the miracle of filmmaking more accessible by providing a marketplace for black independent filmmakers. According to founder Jeff Friday, the 10-year-old festival — held for the past five years in Miami — attracts aspiring filmmakers and industry leaders from major distributors such as Wal-Mart and HBO. He estimates that 80 to 85 percent of the films featured at the ABFF secure a distribution deal as a result of the festival. Friday attributes that success rate to changes in the industry over the past decade, especially the shift in the main source of profit from theatrical release to DVD sales. “Now the DVD market is the leading cash cow for the industry,” Friday points out. “That gives filmmakers increased opportunities to get distribution.” The opportunities have increased further this year as, less than two weeks before the 2006 festival, ABFF and Warner Home Video — the largest distributor of home videos in the nation — inked a deal for an “American Black Film Festival Presents…” series of titles selected from the festival.

For all the growth, black male actors, writers, directors and producers continue to outpace black women. The speakers on the “Empowering Black Women” panel hinted at the overwhelming odds they faced, as every anecdote they shared was an awe-inspiring tale of perseverance. Yet it’s clear from listening to their stories that the key for black women to succeed in Hollywood is to ignore the obstacles and believe in themselves. Indeed, moderator Robinson nearly stumped the panel by asking each woman to describe a time she had taken a “wrong path” and advise the audience on how to avoid making the same mistakes.

“I don’t believe there is such a thing as a wrong path,” insisted Kimberly Elise, 39, who has appeared in television and film, including Diary of a Mad Black Woman and The Manchurian Candidate. She refused to contemplate any limitations black women might face. “Don’t engage in negative dialogue about how much we get paid or what opportunities we get,” she advised. “Go with your own instinct about what is right for you.”

Cicely Tyson, the revered 73-year-old actress who also was nominated for an Academy Award in 1972 (for best actress for her role in the movie Sounder) agreed, telling the audience she believed she came to her profession by “divine guidance.”

She recounted how she was forbidden to watch movies as a girl and so had no aspirations to be an actress when she was spotted at the office of Ebony magazine and invited to do a screen test. When she was offered a part, she refused to take it until she had studied acting. Years later, when she was approached to do Sounder, she rejected the role of the teacher she was offered, and insisted instead on the leading part of the mother, Rebecca. She was told she was too young and pretty to play the character, but went home and worked on the role for three weeks anyway. When she finally received a call that she would be playing Rebecca, her agent asked her whether she was surprised. “‘No,’ I told him,” she remembers. “I knew that was my part.”

For all her personal good fortune, though, Tyson is passionate about the real limits to black women’s success. “I don’t care what anyone says,” she protested, gripping the microphone with a white-gloved hand. “We are always at the bottom rung of the ladder, and we will always be there struggling. You’ve got to hold on. Never let go, and you will eventually get to the next rung.”

Tyson’s testimony moved television producer and writer Mara Brock Akil, 36, to recount her recent struggle to hire her own mentor, an established producer and writer with a successful track record, for Akil’s upcoming series on the newly formed CW network (created from the merger of UPN with the WB). Despite Brock Akil’s belief that her preferred candidate is “wildly talented,” the network suggested a number of white, male writers instead. At the Loews, recalling the situation, Brock Akil paused to regain her composure. Then she told how she finally overcame their objections when the writer submitted a new script that was superior to the competition. “That’s how you hang onto the rung,” she said. “Her script was better.”

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