CINCINNATI — The first Cincinnati Black Director's Showcase is Thursday night, and it's meant to highlight the work of Black filmmakers in the Tri-State.
"When you watch a movie from a different culture, if you don't understand or get it right away, then sometimes you don't have that person to interact with," Hear and See Productions founder Cam Marshall said. And it is with this thought in mind that Marshall decided to organize the showcase.
The showcase will feature four short films which were written and directed by Black artists. Audience members will also be able to ask questions about the films to learn more about them.
"Each film is unique and different in their own right," Marshall said. "That's important to me because I think people don't realize that, you know, Black people don't all think the same. We don't all tell our stories in the same way."
Research from the management consulting firm McKinsey shows less than 6% of writers, directors and producers of films produced in the US are Black.
"When it comes time to carve out your niche or your spot in the industry, you have to do it," Vernard Fields, the president of the Black Cincinnati Cinema Collective, said. "I'd said, you know what, let me just get the people that have a passion matching my energy... And let's just all get together and let's create our own."
"There is no reason that you can't create your own stories," Alicia Redmond, the vice president of Black Cincinnati Cinema Collective, said. "I just encourage all filmmakers, you know, to, to take the reins in their own hands and to do, and to create those stories and to create the things that you want to see."
And a lot of those stories are being produced here in the Tri-State, according to Marshall.
"There's just something special about Cincinnati," he said. "I think that the more people see what is happening in Cincinnati, the more projects that are gonna start to happen."
The showcase starts at 7 p.m. at the Esquire Theatre on Ludlow Avenue. Tickets are $20, and people can purchase them here. Ticket sales will go toward supporting a local feature film on racial profiling called Freaky Profiling.
