The American Black Film Festival is celebrating its 26th anniversary. The festival is returning to Miami Beach on June 15. ABFF founder Jeff Friday joins Cheddar News to discuss. 

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The American Black Film Festival Returns for it's 26th Year

Everyone founded in 1997. The American Black Film Festival easily became the go to spot for black filmmakers to showcase their independent projects on a large scale 26 years later, the festival still prevails. It's returning to Miami Beach on June 15 Cheddar Shannon Lanier sat down with the founder, Jeff Friday about how the team is preparing for this year's festival. No, we're excited. You know, we, we never realized how much we relied on this community, this, this annual event where we get everyone together in Hollywood. So I could not be happier to be back back to the beach as we say, brother, just really, really excited about this year. And and it's interesting because People have asked me after 26 years, does it ever become all the answers? No, every year it evolves every year. The industry is different. We introduced new people because as you well know really the core of what the festival about is the introduction of new creative voices to, to the industry at large. So because it's ever evolving, it just never, never, never gets over. So happy to be back. But one of the things that's evolving this year is that it is hybrid again. So do you think this is a format that you'll see also moving forward even after the pandemic and everything, just so more people can attend regardless of where they are on the planet. Yeah. You know, we had it the last two years have been virtual. As you know, and Typically we have 7-10,000 people show up live in Miami and we built this platform called a BFF play. So we have our own streaming platform. We're the only festival I think that has its own streaming platform And we had 90, we had 74,000 people joined us last year virtually From from 90 different countries. So now we've taken this live event and we've added this virtual component and now we've got close to 100,000 live in virtual. So we'll never go back to just being Alive Festival. From now. From now on, we're going to be alive and virtual hybrid. So let's move on to is a right. We got to talk about her as your ambassador. Why was it important for her to represent the festival this year? I mean besides the fact that she is loved around the country around the world, you know, who doesn't, who doesn't love, you know, this is just so positive. She's pro her culture. Um, and that's really what the ambassador the world's about. People who identify with the festival, but more importantly, who identify with people, the black people and understand how important the mission of the festival is. And the last thing is East is an alumni professor. I think it was 2014, Her first web series screened at a BFF and she credits her credit and she credits us for being the festival that played her work for the very first time. So kind of a full circle moment with a really wonderful, incredible human being that we uh this also happens to be hugely talented and aligned with our presenting sponsor, which is one of one of the brothers Warner Media Warner brothers Discovery H B H B O. So those are all the reasons why she's the perfect ambassador. Yeah. I've actually heard her talk about a BFF in interviews and talking about her foundation, you know, and she is very open about bragging about how you guys gave her her first opportunity to be highlighted. So that is huge. And you guys do that with a lot of independent filmmakers and content creators. Why is that an important, you know, platform for you to make sure you have that outlet because a lot of times it's hard for them to get anyone to see their stuff regardless of how amazing it is. It's hard sometimes. So why is that important for you? You know, I've traveled to most of the film festivals around the world and I'm a big fan of many of them where I think they missed the beat to some degree is I'll change that those festivals, the mainstream ones that we know about there centered around kind of being a market for who's got the next hottest project to get purchased for distribution. Our mission is very different and purposely we are centered or rooted in the people. So we're not concerned whether if your movie gets as concerned if your movie gets acquired by um interesting, we want to be a launchpad or farm system for talented black and brown people who often get overlooked by mainstream studios and networks and festival. So that's what we're about. Our core. We've always a bit about that and this is just one of thousands of people who have come to the festival. We've gotten our love and support and then gone and then gone out to show the world how fantastic they are. I always believe that black people are the most creative people, powerful people in the world. My personal view and all that we need is what were often denied is access an opportunity. You give a person who's talented and oftentimes young when you inspire them to give them access to the same things that are mainstream counterparts. Have you create an array or Ryan cougar or will packer or people like that. So that's our model man, it's been working and like I said, it never gets old because there's always a new voice that we celebrate and that we empower. I'm so happy you are letting us all know about them. But I want to back up a little bit before we end. I want to go back past 26 years. What was your original vision for the film festival and how do you think that has changed or evolved till now? Like especially how it relates to the black community and impacting so many people. Great question. I actually went to, I was, you know, I'm from New York as well and I went to to the Sundance Film Festival in 1997 and I loved it. But I didn't see diversity and I had a choice of writing them a long letter and saying, hey, why is there no diversity? It was primarily white men, you know, doing deals and having a great time. And I decided to to partner with with the co founders of the original festival and we did our own. And that's always been kind of how I like. I love to operate when things bring me discomfort and I think things are unfair relates to our, our community. I just activate and and we do, we do our work by just by just getting getting down to it, man. So the, so the, so the motivation for this festival is really my trips to other festivals and not seeing people of color represented. Special thanks to Jeff Friday, founder of the American Black Film Festival. It runs from June 15 to June 19 in Miami Beach. And thanks to Shannon