The Roxbury International Film Festival returns this week, running in person from June 18 to June 26. The festival reclaims space and culture for people of color around the world.
“This year, we were thinking a lot about the issue of erasure,” says Lisa Simmons, the festival’s executive and artistic director. The organizers seek out films that “raise the visibility of people and places that often go unrepresented or unknown,” with a repertoire that sheds light on topics such as displacement, gentrification, and the loss of historical memory. Stories of struggle and injustice are on offer, alongside tales of joy and aspiration.
The festival opens with the short “The Bill Patterson Story,” immediately followed by the feature-length documentary “Transforming the Beautiful Game: The Clyde Best Story.” The former explores its namesake Patterson’s work in public service in Oakland. The latter covers Clyde Best’s legacy breaking barriers in soccer. These works, like many in the festival, highlight the social impact and cultural contributions of Black and brown people, such that they will not be forgotten by coming generations. “These are stories that people don’t even know about, and they should,” says Simmons. “These are heroes that have done amazing things.”
Another one of the festival’s major themes is identity and belonging. “We’re all in this together,” Simmons says of the global Black and brown experience. “How are people seeing themselves in a world that is progressively taking away people of color?” She elaborates that monolithic mainstream media representations do not cover the breadth of diversity: “We have to be constantly deconstructing those hegemonic images.”
Leon Hendrix III is the director of the festival’s closing night movie, a romantic drama film called “Montmartre.” The Parisian love story doesn’t fit into many of the tropes associated with people of color in American cinema. In Hendrix’s words, “It’s rare truly to see a love story about people of color [where] they’re not struggling to make ends meet […] it’s about the existential quest for meaning and legacy and connection.”
The “Montmartre” director further says he understands why Black American cinema has historically focused on external dangers, rather than introspection. However, Hendrix notes that in this era, there are more Black people with money, or political influence, or status. “They’re kind of moving beyond these really simple survival questions into an existential space,” he says. “There are new questions about what to do with the freedom and the life that’s afforded to you that we haven’t had to reckon with on a larger scale.”
‘One big hug’
The Roxbury festival emphasizes shorts, elevating emerging filmmakers and local talent. According to Simmons, each shorts program functions like a feature film, revolving around themes such as “relationships” or “dreamers.” Another quirk of the festival is the online daily reads program, wherein local screenwriters’ work is read by local actors, followed by a discussion. The program began during COVID as a means to support local talent and initiate a feedback process.
Hendrix admires the social aspect of the festival, and the opportunity to speak with audiences and fellow filmmakers. His advice to aspiring directors is, firstly, to find an idea that they believe in, and secondly to find a community.
“I went to Columbia Film School,” the director shares, “and I can tell you from all the way back in those days, it is nearly impossible to make a good movie by yourself. There are certainly filmmakers who are jack-of-all-trades, people like Sean Baker […] but everyone needs an actor or editor.” He credits the support of many people for his own film’s release. “Believe in yourself, take a shot, build a tribe.”
At this fest, that tribe is international. Q&As and afterparties offer creatives the chance to mingle and connect with a global cohort. Hendrix describes the atmosphere itself as “one big hug.” It’s also a networking opportunity for filmmakers, all while celebrating the lives of people in spaces where American audiences rarely see them. Through this representation, these locations are opened to BIPOC audiences, as places they have kinship with. “People understand that they are not the first to go there,” Simmons concludes.
An international festival
Though “Montmartre” is an American film, it takes place in Paris, a city with both personal significance to Hendrix and cultural significance to the Black diaspora. Historically, Paris has been portrayed as a place that offers Black Americans, such as Josephine Baker and James Baldwin, the opportunity to be celebrated and accepted. Hendrix recalls that in Baldwin’s account of visiting Paris, he “talked about being able to breathe in the city, and realizing that he essentially had been holding his breath the whole time in the US.”
In fiction, the city has been portrayed as a refuge: an environment where Black people can be around white people, and be treated as ordinary human beings. Still, Hendrix acknowledges the “fraught” aspects of Paris, and the “complex emotional relationship we have with the place.”
While exposing one’s own vision through filmmaking is a vulnerable process, Hendrix appreciates when his work resonates with audiences. His film stars his partner as the female lead, and he has met people at Q&As who connected with the feminine perspective in the film. “I made this movie with Black women in mind,” he says. “It feels like I hit the mark when a woman comes up to me and says, This is for me, and this is my experience.”
Hendrix warns against the solipsism of American culture. He notes that not only is it heavily derivative of pre-existing cultures, but that “the world is bigger than just this place.” The filmmaker believes in the value of visiting destinations with unfamiliar languages and people, and being forced to overcome “prejudices and fears.” For those who cannot afford to visit new lands physically, film offers a brief window into these other lives.
Almost 30 years of film and more
According to Simmons, the Roxbury festival started with about 14 films. Twenty-eight years later, they’re offering 104 films. During that stretch, she has witnessed the expansion of Boston’s local film industry, as production companies got established and the number of filmmakers grew. Actors, and even audience members, have gone on to shoot their own movies. Through it all, the annual event has remained accessible and resilient.
Simmons recalled that when the festival began in the late ’90s, Black and brown Americans were primarily represented by urban dramas within the studio system. Not only was this system hard to enter, but shooting on film was prohibitively expensive for newcomers. The advent of smaller, relatively inexpensive digital cameras reduced barriers to aspiring directors. Distribution models have since expanded, with more film festivals and production companies receptive to BIPOC talent. The independent filmmaking industry has blossomed, producing more quality films from a broader range of creatives. Simmons points out that successful films such as “Backrooms” and “Obsession” are being made by younger filmmakers, including YouTubers.
While Hendrix agrees that technology has democratized the movie industry, he still emphasizes that sizable obstacles persist for people seeking to create feature films. With respect to YouTubers, he says, “In the Hollywood press, people will say things like, Oh my God, this filmmaker came out of nowhere and how did it happen? Here’s how it happened… they had 10 years doing comedy sketches, and now they have a 10 million person following.” He suggests that creatives find their “fire,” and then find others to collaborate with.
In teaching BIPOC people about their collective histories, the longstanding film fest aims to foster a collective memory. Simmons says the movies “give people this idea that they are not alone …
“There is hope, and they need to move forward.”
The Roxbury International Film Festival takes place primarily in and around Roxbury at institutions including the MFA and Hibernian Hall. More details at roxfilmfest.com.
