ActNow Foundation Kicks Off New Voices in Black Cinema at BAMcinematek In Brooklyn

On August 27, 2009, the ActNow Foundation launched their "New Voices in Black Cinema" series at BAMcinématek, Brooklyn's only daily, year round repertory film program that is part of the greater Brooklyn Academy of Music arts community. Founded by Aaron Ingram and Martin Majeske, the ActNow Foundation is a non-profit 501c(3) theater & film arts organization that focuses on the Black & Latino experience in this country.

"New Voices in Black Cinema" series, one of the many events presented by ActNow, alongside Brooklyn's famed ANF Short film Collective, focuses on true independent feature films that mirror the experience of the African Diaspora.

Their inaugural film, "6 Things I Never Told You", is a collaboration of six very different films written and directed by six NYU Graduate Film program alums who call themselves The Leagues. Each film examines black sex and sexuality without showing the act of sex. The Leagues chose "randomness" as one of the underlying guidelines for each film. At their first meeting they picked up the book "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison off the shelf and picked random lines from the book as the basis for their films, interpreted by each filmmaker's sensibilities.

The best executed of the six vignettes in this 92 minute feature has to be "The Fifth Thing" by Caran Hartsfield. It explores the first encounter of a lonely, desperate older woman, played by Novella Nelson (Antwone Fisher) and an almost juvenile male prostitute who is standing in for her regular gigolo. This was a beautiful piece worth seeing. It received a big round of applause.

"6 Things" other five films couldn't live up to the quality of writing, directing and performances exhibited in "The Fifth Thing."

"The First Thing" is about a man who was trying to win back his wife as he is moving out in the wake of a break-up-has some amusing dialogue but it was slow moving and too wordy, with a fart joke that lasted way too long between two characters who were hardly empathetic.

"The Second Thing" is about a wife who is disappointed by her husband, only to be visited by the Cable Guy looking to repair her cable-starts off with what appeared to be a clichéd metaphor of the old fantasy of the repair man suddenly visiting the housewife, but the piece's overall lack of plausibility made the ending predictable.

"The Third Thing" is an artsy piece using the stage of sadist-masochism to express ideas of what it means to be a black republican-possessed no redeeming qualities, being painfully pretentious, tedious, confusing, unrewarding expressionism, patent leather knee high boots, nudity and all.

"The Fourth Thing" was about a guilt-ridden wife having an affair with her blind husband's friend-over-the-top performances were distracting, along with poor cinematography and a visible narrator with monologues done in front of psychedelic backdrops, all reminiscent of the narrator's part from "The Twilight Zone" series.

"The Sixth Thing" starred Jamie Hector (HBO's The Wire) as a husband trying to reassure his wife that they are going to be good parents to their unborn baby-started off with some potential but the back and forth chattering further undermined by the two characters just sitting still for most of the piece made for an uneventful experience.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate "6 Things I Never Told You" a 4/10. Without "the Fifth Thing" being as good, the overall film would have gotten a 2/10.

The 6:50PM screening ended with a Q&A with five of the six directors, which to me reflected the audience's collective apathy for this film. Unfortunately for us, Caran Hartsfield, the directed of "The Fifth Thing" was not present but the mere mention of her piece garnered her another big round of applause.

Despite my obvious lack of enthusiasm for this particular film, I am looking forward to attending the next "New Voices In Black Cinema" series.

For more information about the Act Now Foundation and the "New Voices In Black Cinema" series, go to their website at http://www.actnowproduction.org.