Entertainment

Black Film Festival Shifts Focus to Web as Options Expand

Published

11 years ago

June 12, 2015

In this Sept. 7, 2011 file photo, producer, director and writer Issa Rae, creator of the YouTube series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” poses for a photo at her home in Los Angeles. As scrutiny continues over diversity in film and opportunities for African Americans in Hollywood, some black actors and producers are looking to another avenue where they see growth, the Web. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

LUQMAN ADENIYI, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — As scrutiny continues over diversity in film and opportunities for African Americans in Hollywood, some black actors and producers are looking to another avenue where they see growth — the Web.

Success stories like Issa Rae, whose “Awkward Black Girl” Internet comedy series was so successful she received a development deal with HBO, have opened the door for others who may have found more traditional avenues in Hollywood closed. So as the American Black Film Festival opened in New York this week for its 19th year, it has turned its focus to the Web.

“Degrassi” star Andrea Lewis is among those finding more exposure on the Internet. Used to being the only black person on set, when Lewis was not getting the roles she wanted, she decided not going to wait.

“Instead of wondering where the next opportunity can come, I said, ‘I am going to come up with it and do it myself,'” Lewis said.

She took to the Web with her comedy series “Black Actress,” sharing the narrative of black women trying to make it in the industry. The 10- to 20-minute episodes include the storyline of a young women going on auditions, woven in with real-life interviews from actresses such as Tatyana Ali and “Power” Naturi Naughton. They discuss the lack of significant roles offered, and the struggle to live creatively.

Lewis said she created “Black Actress” after she was introduced as the “urban one” by a cast member.

“I was seen as the black one on the set, not as a peer or another actor who is trying to work,” she said. “It was an uncomfortable experience for me and also for the others who were there.”

Now Lewis is writing, producing and acting on her own terms. She is working on three other Web series and a feature film with Jungle Wild Productions.

For her, the Internet offers “creative freedom and there is no gatekeeper on what you can put out with your team.”

Her show is featured as a part of the festival’s “2015 Web Originals” panel. Other events at ABFF, which runs until Sunday, include the New York premiere of “Dope” and a conversation with ABFF ambassador and “Empire” star Taraji P. Henson.

Jeff Friday, co-founder of the ABFF, said using the Internet and social media is an easy way for young actors and producers to get themselves out there and create content.

“You’ve got to try to take your own destiny in your own hands and there is no excuse now,” he said.

Rae, the creator and star of “Awkward Black Girl” and the HBO-ordered pilot “Insecure,” is joining Andrea Lewis and the creators of website BlackandSexy.tv, Numa Perrier and Dennis Dortch, for the panel “How to Create and Monetize a Successful Web Series.”

Rae said events like these are important at ABFF because “a lot of people don’t know how to get started and how to make money.”

Rae’s success comes after creating multiple web series and producing other projects with her company, Color Creative.

“I got into this industry initially as a fan and to be able to use my platform to support other up-and-coming artists that I am a fan of. That’s an ideal situation for me,” she said.

When she created her first Web series in 2007, her main concern was creating more roles for black women and creating content for the type of humor she enjoyed.

“I never thought that anyone would really pay to see my work online,” Rae said.

BuzzFeed actress and comedian Quinta Brunson, known as Quinta B., started with posting funny self-made videos on Vine and Instagram. Now she is making videos for a major media company on topics such as the perks of being short, the struggle to gain weight and the best free bread at restaurants.

She said she is able to express herself as a writer and comedian that she would not be able to do anywhere else.

“The thing I like the most about BuzzFeed is I do the kind of video where it’s just me being a person,” Brunson said, “especially as a black women, I appreciate the freedom to decide who I’ll be rather than being told who I will be.”

Friday said with ABFF’s focus on writing courses and producer panels, they are trying to create a close-knit African-American film and television community, so that successful black artists can share their secrets and make those coming up feel like they can make it.

“Ultimately we just want the people who are working in Hollywood to be more reflective of our audience,” Friday said.

By using the Internet and Web series, “once you have an audience Hollywood will come knocking.” Friday said.

___

Online:

Home 1

___

Follow Luqman Adeniyi at http://www.twitter.com/luqman_adeniyi

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard on Hosting Spike’s Guys Choice Awards: ‘We Are Pretty Hilarious!’

Don't Miss

Ornette Coleman, Jazz Musician, Dies Aged 85

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

21 hours ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

1 week ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

1 week ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.