The Newark Black Film Festival is our country's longest running film festival of its kind, and it kicks off its 50th year today in Newark.

It started as a traveling black film festival in Philadelphia before making its way to the Newark Museum of Art in 1974, which then became the festival's permanent home.

It's since become a fixture in the city and has helped to launch the film careers of countless black movie directors, helping to break down the barriers they faced and creating movies that reflected the life and experiences of the black community.

Directors like Spike Lee, whose movies are too many to name, or Ava DuVernay, who went on to win an Oscar for her film Selma.

And Warrington Hudlin, who made the movies Boomerang and House Party.

The list goes on.

But behind the scenes, helping to choose each of the movies selected for viewing at the Newark Black Film Festival was the chair of the selection committee.

Richard Wesley.

I have the honor of having him here.

With me now to discuss the significance of this 50th anniversary.

Richard, so great to have you with us.

It's really great to be here.

How has the Black Film Festival really grown and evolved in its 50 years?

Oh, I think in terms of the breadth of the films that we've been selecting.

We began as a committee back in the mid-seventies, concentrating mostly on films that were produced here within the United States.

But over the years, we have expanded that to begin a conversation about cinema across the African diaspora.

So it's not only the United States, it's the Caribbean, it's South America, it's Europe and, of course, Africa.

And we've been able to bring in films from all of those areas across the 50 years that we've been functioning.

We know that representation matters so much in film, especially for younger people.

You can't see it if you can't be it if you can't see it, right.

How has the film festival really changed the movie industry for black filmmakers?

Black actors?

I think I would answer that question, you know, in terms of our encouraging access, our efforts to turn the festival and the Newark Museum of Art into a space where filmmakers can bring their work before audiences and expose their work in that way and develop a distribution network for themselves.

We are exposing these films to audiences that were never previously aware of them, and the filmmakers, in turn are finding new people to talk to, new people to communicate with, and that has helped both the community and the filmmakers themselves.

And, of course, the Newark Museum.

Absolutely.

I'm curious what challenges still exist for folks out there trying to get their films into mainstream audiences?

Black directors, black filmmakers, producers.

Filmmakers are broadly filmmakers of color.

In particular are in a in a new environment where the venues for independent filmmakers, for filmmakers who are outside the mainstream, those venues have continuously collapsed.

And they're at a point now where distribution outlets are almost nonexistent.

But I believe we're also in an environment, and the newer Black Film Festival is part of that new environment where the technology, which has democratized the filmmaking process, is also creating new opportunities for distribution.

And we are excited about being part of that conversation.

I was going to ask you that you teed up my next question perfectly because we have this kind of disparate world where at the one hand you have access to just about anything at your fingertips.

Yes.

But on the other hand, you're showing films that maybe folks can't get on their phones.

Right.

So how do you get people excited about a film festival, excited to come out when they do have so much right there at their fingertips?

Well, because we're offering the things that they're not able to get at their fingertips.

And people want to see themselves.

They want to see themselves on screen.

And I think in this, you know, current commercial environment where that kind of opportunity instead of expanding, is actually contracting.

I mean, as a journalist, I'm sure you've been covering this latest merger between Paramount Studios and Skydance's, this giant sovereign capital organization that impacts not just the Hollywood system itself, but it impacts the portals through which independent and emerging filmmakers come.

And when one of those portals is suddenly taken away or moved into another kind of platform environment, that means that there are that many other voices that are not being able to be heard or seen.

Yeah.

And so that's where the new Black Film Festival steps in.

We're one of those new portals where, hey, we offer you a place to be seen and to be heard.

So let's talk about what you can see and hear this year, this 50th anniversary.

What films are you most excited about?

What's airing today?

Today it's a new film, Sing Sing, that we'll be featuring in our open house.

And it's part of a a genre of films, a long, long form narratives that more and more young filmmakers are trying to become a part of.

Everyone wants to tell their story and they all want to tell their story in a featured kind of format.

And Sing Sing represents that.

Story about an incarcerated man who starts a play.

Starts a play within a play.

So it has a kind of non-linear form to it.

But when you're watching his story unfold on screen, you're also watching his interpretations of of his reality.

It has this nice quality of allowing all of us to think about how we would tell our stories if we had the opportunities or if we were placed in an environment where we couldn't.

All right.

Two more films that you're most excited about.

Well, there's seeking seeking Mrs.

Beaten, which is coming at the end.

It's a a short film.

Well, not a short film and some of medium, medium length.

We're going to have a Q&A surrounding it and then of you put me on the spot here and.

Take a minute.

There's a the revival film Mount Eve's Bayou.

I'm sorry.

I'm sitting down by you, Mrs.. Eve's Bayou, which is a film by Kasi Lemmons, the director who actually we were on as a festival.

We were among the very first to screen that film back in the nineties when it first came out.

In the years since that time, she has emerged as a major voice for young black women filmmakers in the country, and I'm very excited about seeing that film on the big screen once again.

She's going to be with us and we're going to have a special night in which we can honor her and on that night, we're also screening a new film by a young filmmaker who's coming up, and they are going to be in conversation on stage that evening.

So a new generation, talking to a previous generation and having that intergenerational conversation is going to be a major feature of that night.

Looking forward to that.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Thank you so much for all that you've done here in the community and you And it's not only the 50th anniversary.

You have a birthday tomorrow.

Happy birthday to you.

This is a big week.

A big week for me.

Yes.

Richard Wesley, chairman of the selection committee at the Newark Black Film Festival.

Thank you.