BlackStar Film Festival
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BlackStar Film Festival
The BlackStar Film Festival is a Philadelphia film festival focused on films about and by black, brown and indigenous people from around the world. It has been described as the "Black Sundance. The festival is named after Marcus Garvey's shipping line, the Black Star Line. It was founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes, initially as a one-day "microfestival" that in success became a four-day international event. Backers of the festival include the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, HBO, CAA, Comcast, and Lionsgate. The first festival included a master class and screening of part of Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay. Later festivals have included films by Gabourey Sidibe, Janine Sherman Barrois, Darius Clark Monroe, Nijla Baseema Mu’min, and Naima Ramos-Chapman. Panels have included Bradford Young, Rashid Shabazz, Spike Lee Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production com ...
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Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1854, the city has been coextensive with Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania and the urban core of the Delaware Valley, the nation's seventh-largest and one of world's largest metropolitan regions, with 6.245 million residents . The city's population at the 2020 census was 1,603,797, and over 56 million people live within of Philadelphia. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker. The city served as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's inde ...
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The Grio
TheGrio, styled as thegrio, is an American television network and website with news, opinion, entertainment and video content geared toward Black Americans. The website originally launched in June 2009 as a division of NBC News, it became a division of MSNBC in 2013. It was founded by the team who created the documentary film '' Meeting David Wilson''. In 2014, it was sold to its founders. In June 2016, Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios acquired the site. The TV channel was founded as Light TV in 2016 by reality television producer Mark Burnett and his wife, actress Roma Downey, as an inspirational network as part of his chairmanship of MGM Television, which operated the network. It was sold to Entertainment Studios in late 2020, and relaunched as TheGrio TV in January 2021, with a Black-specific programming focus. After Entertainment Studios purchased the assets of the bankrupt Black News Channel in late July 2022, that network was merged into TheGrio TV on August 1, includ ...
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Tarana Burke
Tarana Burke (born September 12, 1973) is an American activist from The Bronx, New York, who started the MeToo movement. In 2006, Burke began using MeToo to help other women with similar experiences to stand up for themselves. Over a decade later, in 2017, #MeToo became a viral hashtag when Alyssa Milano and other women began using it to tweet about the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases. The phrase and hashtag quickly developed into a broad-based, and eventually international movement. ''Time'' named Burke, among a group of other prominent activists dubbed "the silence breakers", as the ''Time'' Person of the Year for 2017. Burke presents at public speaking events across the country and is currently Senior Director at Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn. Early life and education Burke was born in The Bronx, New York, and raised in the area. She grew up in a low-income, working-class family in a housing project and was raped and sexually assaulted both as a child and a tee ...
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Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with ''She's Gotta Have It'' (1986). He has since written and directed such films as '' School Daze'' (1988), ''Do the Right Thing'' (1989), '' Mo' Better Blues'' (1990), '' Jungle Fever'' (1991), ''Malcolm X'' (1992), '' Crooklyn'' (1994), '' Clockers'' (1995), '' 25th Hour'' (2002), ''Inside Man'' (2006), ''Chi-Raq'' (2015), ''BlacKkKlansman'' (2018) and ''Da 5 Bloods'' (2020). Lee also acted in eleven of his feature films. His films have featured breakthrough and acclaimed performances from actors such as Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo and John David Washington. Lee's work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of m ...
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Rashid Shabazz
Rashid Shabazz, known professionally by the nickname “Roc”, is an American IFBB Pro Champion, celebrity fitness trainer, and business owner. Best known for his accomplishments in the bodybuilding industry, Roc spent many years under the mentorship of eight-time Mr.Olympia, Lee Haney. He took home 1st place in the 2010 Phoenix Pro in Arizona, and 2nd in the Orlando Europa Pro that same year Early life and education The oldest of three boys raised by their mother, Rashid’s formative years were spent in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Upon graduating from Bay High School, where he was a letterman in football, baseball, and tennis, Roc attended Jackson State University on a baseball scholarship to further his education. He graduated from JSU in 1990 with a Bachelor's degree in Business, and was the first in his family to graduate from a 4-year institution. During his college years was also when Roc first found notoriety, having set an, at the time, all-time state record for a ...
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Bradford Young
Bradford Marcel Young, A.S.C (born July 6, 1977) is an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work on ''Selma'', ''When They See Us'', '' A Most Violent Year'', '' Solo: A Star Wars Story'' and ''Arrival'', which earned him a nomination for an Academy Award. Early life and background Young spent his early years in Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended The Brown School and Central High School. He moved to Chicago at age 15 to live with his father. He received early artistic inspiration by the works of Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Aaron Douglas. Although he intended to study writing, he studied film at Howard University, where he was influenced by Haile Gerima. His first film project at Howard was a group project, a black and white silent film shot on a Canon Super 8. Working on set with filmmaking colleagues at Howard was his introduction to film. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C. for college, Young says "the only reason I cared about movies was how most p ...
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Naima Ramos-Chapman
Naima Ramos-Chapman is an American director, writer, and actress. She directed two short films that deal with gender-based violence, ''And Nothing Happened'' in 2016, and ''Piu Piu'' in 2018. Life and career Ramos-Chapman was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn. She is of Puerto Rican and Black descent. She studied dance from childhood and attended the Alvin Ailey School for Dance. Ramos-Chapman graduated from Brooklyn College. The first film Ramos-Chapman wrote and directed was the 2016 short ''And Nothing Happened''. She used Kickstarter and worked several jobs to finance the film. The film, which she stars in, was inspired by her trauma in the aftermath of a sexual assault. She stated in an interview with ''Essence'', "It is not only a thing one person survives–sexual assault is something a whole family, community, nation survives and until we understand that we cannot truly confront it. That is why I made ''And Nothing Happened''." In 2018, Ramos-Chapman wrote and directed ''Piu ...
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Darius Clark Monroe
Darius Clark Monroe (born 1980) is a writer, producer, and director, living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Early life and robbery Monroe was born in Houston, Texas. As a teenager, Monroe robbed a bank in Stafford, Texas; which resulted in him being sentenced to 5 years in prison. Filmmaking Filmography Evolution of a Criminal (2014) Monroe's feature debut, ''Evolution of a Criminal'', World Premiered at SXSW 2014. The film won awards at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (Grand Jury Prize, Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award) and Dallas International Film Festival (Special Jury Prize). Produced by Monroe, Daniel Patterson, and Keith Davis; and, executive produced by Spike Lee; filmmaker Darius Monroe returns to his home town and to the bank where he committed the crime, examining and confronting how his actions affected the lives of his family, friends, and victims. ''Evolution of a Criminal'' started as a project of Monroe’s at NYU’s film school. ...
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Vogue (magazine)
''Vogue'' is an American monthly fashion and lifestyle magazine that covers many topics, including haute couture fashion, beauty, culture, living, and runway. Based at One World Trade Center One World Trade Center (also known as One World Trade, One WTC, and formerly Freedom Tower) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Mer ... in the FiDi, Financial District of Lower Manhattan, ''Vogue'' began in 1892 as a weekly newspaper before becoming a monthly magazine years later. Since its founding, ''Vogue'' has featured numerous actors, musicians, models, athletes, and other prominent celebrities. The largest issue published by ''Vogue'' magazine was the September 2012 edition, containing 900 pages. The British Vogue, British ''Vogue'', launched in 1916, was the first international edition, while the Italian version ''Vogue Italia'' has been called the top fashion magazin ...
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Janine Sherman Barrois
Janine Sherman Barrois is an American television writer, producer, and showrunner. In 2017 she began executive producing and showrunning ''Claws'' on TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen .... Career Janine Sherman Barrois is a writer and showrunner under an exclusive multi-year deal with Warner Bros. to create and develop new series. Barrois was an Executive Producer on all four seasons of Claws, the TNT dramedy starring Niecy Nash, and was the Showrunner for the first three seasons. In addition, she was the Co-Showrunner and Executive Producer of Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker, the Netflix limited series starring Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer. Currently, Barrois is the Creator/Showrunner of The Kings of Napa, a drama about an influential ...
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