LA SHORTS FEST--THE NAKED TRUTH

The L.A. Shorts Fest was a great festival.  The Hands screened on the opening Friday night, in the block after Demi Moore's directorial debut.  It was partnered with some really great films, which is high compliments for our work.  Very cool.  Got great feedback, and a few requests for screeners (screening copies) by a couple of studio people.  Always good.

Here's the part I wasn't expecting.  I received a little email with a pictorial gift that I could have done without...someone who felt the need to make his privates, well, public.  I have a friend who is an anchor at CNN who has been dealing with a few oddballs (no pun intended) of her own, and it all just leaves me perplexed.  I just don't get it.  Is this supposed to make someone more appealing to the recipient?  WTF?!  I have found new ways of screening my mail that will hopefully keep that from happening again.  One friend joked that receiving the x-rated fan mail means you have hit a new high in popularity.  I'd rather have a golden statue.

Someone asked me so long ago, why was there even a need for "Black" film festivals.  I answered that the film market still seems to forget that the world is made up of many stories, and that universal stories can be told from the vantage point of any human capable of experiencing it...thus making it universal.  We need places where it is alright not to be one of the boyz in tha hood, no disrespect to those who are.  In so many festivals, a brown face on the screen means marginalization, generalization, and the assumption that whatever story that brown face portrays couldn't possibly be one to which the average non-brown face could relate.  Sometimes, white festival programmers and directors just don't see us as individuals.

Just before I left Chicago, I received a photo from the director of a festival I screened The Hands at a couple of months ago.  The envelope was addressed to me...the only Black filmmaker at this particular festival.  To my surprise, the envelope contained a picture of the only other Black women to attend the festival besides myself and my daughter. I will post the pic of the women and a pic of my daughter and I when I get back to Chicago.  I will let you be the guest as to how far we have come in truly seeing each other...or not.