“Ready for the Supremes?” the Legendary Chris Washington called out from a DJ booth inside the packed auditorium at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School on a recent August evening, as he played Motown hits for the crowd.
It was one of the biggest nights of the 22nd annual Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, a nine-day event devoted to celebrating Black filmmakers. The festival held on Martha’s Vineyard, the quaint Massachusetts island, has drawn luminaries like actress Jennifer Hudson, director Spike Lee and former President Barack Obama in summers past.
The crowd of about 800 was there last Wednesday night for the premiere of The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, director Tina Mabry’s adaptation of the bestselling novel about a trio of lifelong girlfriends who call themselves the Supremes, after the 1960s girl group. Backstage, Uzo Aduba, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Sanaa Lathan, who star in the film, were posing for a row of photographers as they prepared for the debut screening.
Aduba, who grew up in Massachusetts and occasionally visited the island as a child, said it was her first time attending the festival.
“To see culture and art and our stories presented in this incredibly placid and elegant and green backdrop, which feels like it weds so many historic vacation moments for Black culture,” she said, “is wonderful.”
Floyd and Stephanie Rance, a husband-and-wife team, started the film festival in 2002. At the time, he was a filmmaker running the production company Run & Shoot Filmworks, and she was working in marketing and looking for a role that would allow her to balance a career and children. They had visited the island when they were dating, and had long been drawn to it.
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“Martha’s Vineyard is such a special place to everyone, and it has a special history for African Americans,” Stephanie Rance said, “And I find that when people come to the festival, they’re just like, ‘Oh, my God, this is amazing. It’s our happy place.’”
They booked the local high school to hold the first festival, and as Rance tells it, only about 10 people showed up. But they weren’t deterred: The next year, the couple pivoted to a smaller venue, a conference room at the Mansion House Inn, and kept going.
“They had a little room in the back with those old five-disc players, and that was the projection,” Floyd Rance remembered.
“The mission is always to showcase the best of the best filmmakers of color,” Stephanie Rance added.
As the crowds grew, the screenings returned to the high school, and for Rance, running the annual operation became a full-time job. Over the years, the event has shown both indie films and big studio productions, and several years ago, it received accreditation as a qualifying festival for the short film category at the Oscars. In 2022, Descendant, the Netflix documentary produced by the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, opened the festival with a surprise appearance from the former president and first lady.
“There was a void that we were filling,” Floyd Rance said. “Thankfully, it’s just kind of kept going and kept going and kept going. It’s like The Little Engine That Could.”
On Aug 2, the festival opened with the new A24 film Sing Sing and an appearance from Colman Domingo, the film’s star, alongside Sen Cory Booker of New Jersey. This year, the festival screened about 70 films, including shorts, features and documentaries. Between screenings, there were panels, parties and high-profile networking events around the small island.
On Thursday morning, about 130 women, many of them clad in brightly coloured daytime dresses, walked by pastel hydrangeas and into the Harbor View Hotel, overlooking the Edgartown lighthouse. Inside, Stephanie Rance was hosting a networking event for C-suite executives and other powerful figures.
“My ultimate goal is to get more Black women on corporate boards because that’s where the power lies, right?” Rance said, explaining her vision for the day.
As attendees mingled, waiters offered trays of raspberry spritzes and mini lobster rolls. Aduba chatted with Mabry. Abby Phillip, the CNN anchor, took a selfie with Nicole Avant, a former US ambassador to the Bahamas and the wife of Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix.
Marsha Cooke, the vice president and executive producer for ESPN Films and 30 for 30, the presenting sponsor of the festival, said that guests were talking about “joy, community, friendship and Kamala.”
Over lunch, several executives including Melonie Parker from Google; Liliahn Majeed from L’Oréal; Tinisha Agramonte with The Walt Disney Co; and Stephanie Oueda Cruz of Tiffany & Co shared tips for navigating corporate America during a panel discussion. Sunny Hostin, a co-host on the View, interviewed Keke Palmer, the actress and singer, who made a surprise appearance.
“You are surrounded by folks that are engaged, that have had the same life experiences as you,” said Trudy Grant, who works for a civil rights nonprofit and had come from Charleston, South Carolina, for the festival. “So it’s almost like going to the movies at a family reunion.”
Black vacationers have travelled to Martha’s Vineyard for generations, many drawn by its reputation as a haven. In the early 20th century, Black Americans were barred from many beaches, pools and resorts in the country, but the island town of Oak Bluffs was an exception. The destination attracted Black families as well as prominent political figures and artists, including the Rev Martin Luther King Jr; Edward W Brooke, the senator from Massachusetts; and writer Maya Angelou.
The first few weeks of August are now some of the busiest for tourism there, and the summer social calendar includes Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival and Martha’s Vineyard Comedy Fest.
“What the festival has done is it has created an institution of creativity and gathering based on a 150-year history of gathering,” said Kahina Van Dyke, who grew up visiting the island, and operates several inns in Oak Bluffs including Dunmere by the Sea. “And the people who have been gathering here have been artists and writers and politicians and academics and business people, and they came in the summer.” NYTIMES
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Publish date : 2024-08-13 19:55:00
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