Still accepting submissions for its 3rd annual film festival is Brooklyn's premier Black film showcase, ActNow Foundation's New Voices in Black Cinema. The extra-affordable earlybird deadline is in 20 days – Wednesday, October 31st (a date that's difficult to forget since it is Halloween).
Programmed and produced by ActNow Foundation and hosted by BAMcinématek (the movie wing of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the nations oldest ongoing performance center), it all takes place February 15-18, 2013. The festival, which in the past has showcased independent films like Tanya Hamiton's Night Catches Us (starring Kerry Washington & Anthony Mackie) , Ava DuVernay's I Will Follow, the Aunjanue Ellis starring The Tested, and Dui Jarrod's sexy Lesson Before Love, as well as compelling documentaries such as Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise & Fall of the Spook Who Sat By The Door, Sneaker Stories, and The Furious Force of Rhymes, has also introuduced audiences eager for new voices to new indpendent Black films like Single Hills, SUS, Lesson Before Love, Money Matters, and Let's Stay Together. NVBC also yearly bestows previous undeclared films as 'New Black Classics' – in 2012 Theodore Witcher's Love Jones held that distinction and Wendell B. Harris' Chamelon Street held inaugural title in 2011.
ActNow Foundation's New Voices in Black Cinema is a multi-genre festival of quality movies geared towards getting all audiences to appreciate and support independent films from, by, and starring the African diaspora. Whether the films are contemporary or period pieces, drama or comedy, science fiction or animated, the further purpose of this series is to give filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their talent on a grand stage where they can develop opportunities for limited distribution and create buzz for future industry contacts. Recent special guests include: Jeffrey Wright, Aunjanue Ellis, Lisa Nicole Carson, Theodore Witcher, Warrington Hudlin, Ava Duvernay, Tanya Hamilton, YaYa DaCosta, Les Nubians' Hélène and Célia Faussart, Bobitto Garcia, Tobias Truvillion, NYU cinema studies professor Dr. Ed Guerrero, and much more.
Taking place every February, this program is all about choosing excellence over spectacle and daring stories over standard fare as New Voices pushes the gamut of showing how film explores Black society and provides exhibition to new voices, and existing ones, that represent these rich and diverse cultures proudly putting them on display to the masses.
The festival is also dedicated to showing select short films, usually under a specific theme, and in their previous edition presented Brooklyn's own Jerry Lamothe and his powerful NYC prison drama The Tombs, Monique Walton's trippy The Becoming Box, Lena Waithe's touching drama Save Me, Angela Tucker's satirical documentary web series Black Folk Don't: Go To Therapy, and the second part of Nicole Franklin and Jasmin Tiggett's ongoing examination of Black boys lives Little Brother: The Street, among many fantastic others.
For 2013, NVBC will also re-focus showing films directly from the Latino diaspora in a special showcase, harkening back to ActNow's roots of doing so.
See more info and pictures about the festival on a whole at ActNow's website or email ActNow at [email protected]
The main deadline to submit is November 20, 2012 and the ultra-late deadline is November 30, the latter coming at a heavier price.
All films must be directed and/or produced by or star people from the African and Latino diaspora. Click HERE or go to actnowproduction.org/submissions for application and more details
Since its founding in 2004, ActNow Foundation has been a conduit for filmmakers, playwrights and individuals interested in displaying their craft through an arts organization that displays the best in independent theater and film by hosting regular events in Brooklyn and Manhattan. ActNow delves into stories about race, love, family, cultural differences, self-empowerment, and the toils and aspirations of the working, middle and upper classes. Their ANF Short Film Collective, now in it's eigth year, is the longest-ongoing showcase for short films aimed toward Black & Latino audiences in NYC, the next installment taking place on Nov. 14 in Brooklyn. New Voices in Black Cinema, begun as a one-day/three screening series of a single select Black-indie in 2009 and featuring 6 Things I Never Told You, Still Bill, Inside A Change, and Nurse, Fighter, Boy evolved into a film festival in early 2010. They have also begun expanding NVBC into a travelling series. Stay tuned for further developments on that.
