The Syracuse International Film Festival held its second annual “Honoring Outstanding Black Filmmakers” event Feb. 4 at Le Moyne College.
The Tuesday evening event at the college’s W. Carroll Coyne Center for the Performing Arts was a way to recognize diverse Black voices in the realm of cinema in celebration of Black History Month.
Meant as an empowering, thought-provoking showcase of personal and cultural storytelling and a platform for underrepresented creators, the event put a spotlight on a selection of seven short films, all of which were screened in succession that night.
First up was “Rise Up & Fight,” a piece produced and directed by Nolan Williams, Jr. that reflected on the history of the Civil Rights movement and its enduring impact, complete with an energetic song Williams composed and illustrations by Willie Cordy, Jr. given motion by Gabriel Genesis.
With a style conveying the feeling of old comic books coming to life, that video was part of a larger project launched to encourage civic engagement especially among younger voters leading up to the 2024 national election called the Freedom Advances campaign.
That campaign commemorated the 60th anniversary of Mississippi’s Freedom Summer and paid tribute to the legacies of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, the three young activists abducted and killed by the Ku Klux Klan that June.
That piece was followed by “The War Torn Drum,” a CGI Western set in post-Civil War America that was influenced by films like “Buck and the Preacher.”
That short shown that night is about a U.S. Marshal who bonds with a drummer boy who doesn’t talk much but has seen a lot. Derek A. Ham, its Pittsburgh-based director and writer who also provided his voice to it, said he wanted to give the Western genre a fresh perspective by depicting an animated Black man riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat—something he said audiences don’t often see.
The next featured highlight was “Woke,” another animated short film which explored the intersections of Black identity and activism in the modern world while getting scientific with some laboratory experimentation.
Then there was “Pictures Only,” a live-action short set in 1950s Bronzeville that was written, produced and directed by Charles Honeywood.
That short film addressed the struggles faced by a Black woman who loses her job at an institute and is greeted with a rent increase notice before resorting to dancing at a burlesque club to pay her bills.
The fifth film screened was “A Film Called Black,” which focused on the creation of the song “King’s Speech” by Cam Be & Neak, from the sampling in its beat to the percussion, keyboards, rapping, horn parts and backing vocals.
Before the end result was heard with those various pieces assembled into one whole, the artists involved talked about their family lives and the role models who inspired them to be “kings and queens.”
Following that was “Have a Good Day,” a drama about second chances as a man navigates his last day on probation and encounters temptations threatening to throw off his walk to work. That short directed and written by Anton Mitchell stars Deandreas McCanton in the lead role as a two-time felon and Felice Tamara Jackson as his wife.
The final film shown was “Too Late,” about an absentee, alcoholic father given the chance to save his daughter’s life with a kidney transplant.
“Too Late” was written and directed by Tyrone “Tizak” Jackson, a local filmmaker who was the event’s special honoree.
At the mic that night, Jackson thanked everyone in attendance for acknowledging him and the other directors there for the festivities.
Speaking to any up-and-coming film producers, directors or content creators, Jackson said to set out to do what they have to do and get it done and to not let anybody change their vision.
Before any of the films were shown, local actor, stunt coordinator and martial arts instructor Sharif Bey was welcomed as a guest speaker to relay his insights related to the world of film.
Bey called film a “powerful tool” that can shape how people think and therefore shape reality.
“I have a love for it but I also feel that there’s a deep responsibility for those who make film: those behind the camera and those who are in front of the camera,” he said.
Bey, who is in the new film shot locally “The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo,” also gave credit to his hero, the virtuous kung-fu master and martial arts fight choreographer Lau Kar-leung, whose Hong Kong stunt team he joined as its first American member.
Bey said he’s also proud of the urban drama productions he’s done with Taj Smith that responsibly show the full, “gritty” picture of life on the streets as opposed to glorifying the negative side. Those two are now filming a documentary about the mothers of incarcerated people called “Sorry Mama.”
The Feb. 4 event also included a Q&A with Williams, who was in from Washington, D.C., and Honeywood, who came in from Chicago, about the short films of theirs shown that evening.
Williams touched on the roadblocks that came along when animating “Rise Up & Fight” and funding the different facets of the Freedom Advances campaign and how he and his collaborators worked around those challenges, adding that “necessity became the mother of invention.”
Williams, who has run NEWorks Productions for 22 years, said a graphic novel is in the works that will be paired with “Rise Up & Fight” and that he and a team developed accompanying Freedom Summer educational curricula for all grade levels.
The words of wisdom Williams imparted were that you have to believe your story is worth sharing and that when your idea comes from the heart it will reach someone else. He also said to not be afraid to fail and to trust yourself to be innovative.
For Honeywood, “Pictures Only” was his first time directing, and he said it took two years to complete and plenty of “prayer and patience.”
Honeywood started off as a screenwriter, but he made the switch to the director’s chair to take the project into his own hands after getting tired of hearing the word ‘no’ from people.
His advice was to take leaps of faith and “do right by people” by treating them with respect and kindness, because that will come around full circle and result in more opportunities coming your way.
The “Honoring Outstanding Black Filmmakers” event also included an introduction by Julie Grossman, who runs the film studies program at Le Moyne, in which she thanked those who have been supportive of the arts at the college and the Syracuse International Film Festival for decades of collaboration.
Later, Michelle DiBernardo, the executive director for the film festival and everything it does year-round, said the event that night would not have been possible without Le Moyne’s support as a co-sponsor.
DiBernardo, who appears in Jackson’s film “Too Late,” also handed out certificates of selection and awards to the filmmakers present for their respective projects.
