Karen Ponzio Photos
Still from “Skin.”
Black Haven Film Festival returned on Saturday for its second year, with five new filmmakers ready to share their vision via spoken word, song, dance, and animation — both in person and online.
Last year’s inaugural live event, set for November 2020, was moved entirely online due to Covid-19 restrictions. This year the festival was able to hold a live event at 200 Dixwell Ave. that allowed patrons to sit in their cars or in reserved seats outside and safely distanced. The festival also offered a virtual option. Whatever the viewer chose, they would see the same show.
“Blackness is Global” was this year’s theme, and once again Salwa Abdussabur, principal organizer and founder of Black Haven, opened the festival welcoming attendees, this year both on Dixwell Avenue and virtually.
“Grab your popcorn, lay your edges, and we’ll see you soon,” Abdussabur said with seemingly boundless enthusiasm and a smile to match.
Tyler Jenkins.
A musical performance by Tyler Jenkins was up first — a short film in and of itself, with Jenkins on drums backed up with accompanying guitar, piano, and bass. The word HIGH flashed across the screen. Soon after, his performance was in a split screen with an Instagram live video of two men attempting the milk crate challenge unsuccessfully. Jenkins’s energetic and emotive percussion provided a jazzy welcome and whetted the audience’s appetite for more.
After a two-minute countdown Abdussabur returned with Kasaad Bullok, the festival’s media and creative director, and Isaiah Edwards, festival curator and creative partner, to welcome everyone.
“Black Haven isn’t just a festival,” said Edwards. “It isn’t just a moment. It’s a call to action to bring together Black artists as ourselves to you.” After a short clip informing viewers that they could vote for the Audience Favorite on Black Haven’s website or Instagram page, Bullock spoke.
Kasaad Bullok, Salwa Abudssabur, Isaiah Edwards.
“Black Haven began with a vision, a vision for a space where Black art can be supported, funded, seen and celebrated and held at the status it rightly deserves to be held at,” he said. “Get ready for Black stories, Black art and Black joy.”
Each filmmaker was introduced before their film and had a chance to speak about what Blackness meant to them and about their creative process. The first — multimedia artist Brennan Mayne — said, “I wanna inspire people to explore their freedom of expression in any way that that happens” and that “Blackness to me is just power.” Her powerful film, Skin, focuses on a piece of spoken word written, directed, and performed by Angela Adusah. The piece begins with the words “My black is the largest organ on my body. Without it I lose to your cold stony words and never-ending medical terms.” The camera focuses on the face of the speaker from only two angles, at one interval interspersed with visual clips and music that make the piece even more stunning. “My Black matters no matter what choir you preach to,” Adusah says, and those words become their own form of prayer.
“Blackness is the foundation for everything we know and love,” said the second filmmaker featured, multidisciplinary artist Kolton Harris. “I think that our brains are constantly making movies and the way that we see things is all about perceptions. There are always new ways to tell timeless stories.”
Still from “Black Joy.”
Black Joy begins with a school bell ringing and a girl walking down an empty hallway who enters a classroom with the phrase “I am here because I did not make good choices” written three times on the board. These words and the disconnected teacher who wrote them are soon replaced by another teacher who erases those sentences and writes instead the phrase “Black joy.” Without spoiling the rest of this delightful film, let’s just say this new teacher conveys his lesson in the most joyous musical way. “All this melanin is a gift from the god who made the earth. All my sisters, all my brothers, check the mirror, check your worth,” he sings with pride and of course, Black joy.
Filmmaker and animator Jeffrey Dobbs prefaced his film Synesth-Sense with these words: “Blackness is basically my ethnicity. It’s like whatever we feel when we wake up is how we go out in the rest of the day,” adding, “the change I wanna see in the world is being able to be yourself.”
Still from “Synesth-Sense.”
In this fun and inspirational digitally animated film, we find two artists at the skatepark, one who experiences what is known as synesthesia, the definition of which Dobbs includes at the end of the film. This artist sees colors as the music plays, then changes the music, which changes the colors. Soon an accident finds him reaching out for other sources of musical inspiration to help his art flourish.
A piece of performance poetry by Weruche George was shown prior to the final two films. George introduced herself as an immigrant who has been in America for 16 years, originally from Nigeria. “I am the founder of a non-profit organization, I am an activist, and a poet,” she said, adding that she wrote the poem she was about to share, “As An African,” in 2008.
Weruche’ George.
The poem began with these lines: “My culture, my heritage, has taken my hands and walked life’s lonely roads with me. It has shown me how to survive and thrive in a world where only the strong can live.” As George continued talking about the elders speaking and absorbing their teachings, she spoke of watching and learning among other things, “that as an African I would be content and happy,” and noting that in their eyes “I saw respect for others, but most of all respect for self.” George’s poetic interlude melded the personal and the universal in a way that highlighted the festival’s message of global blackness.
Filmmaker Karl D. Gray Jr. echoed the phrase “Blackness is global,” adding “Blackness is universal. It’s all around us.” In his film Post (Humous) Pops & Live Son, we find Gray with a birthday cake that he slowly decorates with candles that read “64.” He lights them and blows them out before talking to his father Dr. Karl D. Gray Sr, addressing him in the “spirit realm” and catching him up on his own life while also acknowledging and celebrating him on his 64th birthday. He talks about their “riffs” and “moments of clashing,” and his memories of his father’s quotes like “it don’t get no easier” and “do as I say…not as I do.”
Still from “Post (Humous) Pops & Live Son.”
“You did drop a lot of jewels,” he says. “I hope you are proud. I still feel your energy.” This touching and poignant film also includes the Happy Birthday song sung by Gray’s mother, Willa M. Gray.
Gerald Lovelace — filmmaker, choreographer, cinematographer and creative director of The Lab in Meriden — said “Blackness to me is my skin tone, my culture, literally everything that has to do with who I am, and it’s really what drives my creativity.” He also spoke of the importance of representation in his film, titled This Day — A Musical Dance Concept, which included “not only a Black lead but a super diverse cast of people.”
Still from “This Day – A Musical Dance Concept”
The film begins with a man pacing and waiting for a phone call that will hopefully bring him good news about a studio he is trying to acquire. Once that phone rings, the film becomes an all-out goosebump-inducing song and dance experience, and honestly, it makes me wish there was a full-length movie version available.
After one more reminder to vote for audience favorites, Abdussabur, Edwards and Bullok came back to say their thank yous to their community, the Black Haven team, sponsors, and donors. Abdussabur expressed gratitude and commitment toward continuing “the awesome opportunity to uplift filmmakers and Black creatives from across the state of CT.” Year two was a wrap, but its vibrancy and vitality, even through its virtual viewing, was felt and embraced.
More information about the festival as well as the filmmakers who participated can be found at the Black Haven website.
