American Black Film Festival

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American Black Film Festival or ABFF Ventures LLC (ABFFV) is a multifaceted entertainment company specializing in the production of live and digital events. The company’s primary mission is to create properties that entertain, educate and inspire communities of color while showcasing the work of Black artists and content creators in Hollywood. ABFF also regularly provides consulting services to studios and networks aimed at marketing content targeted toward African American audiences as well as companies looking to secure talent for promotional engagements.

The company’s tent-pole live event properties are the American Black Film Festival (ABFF), cited by MovieMaker magazine as “One of the Coolest Festivals in the World;” and ABFF Honors, an annual awards gala saluting the top stars of film and television.

The organization will celebrate its 25th anniversary throughout 2021.[1]

Jeff Friday, American Black Film Festival (ABFF) Founder

History

Jeff Friday attended his very first Sundance Film Festival in January of 1997. He loved the energy and the community that came together around a shared passion for independent film and the discovery of new filmmakers. But when the lights came on, he saw only a few people in the audience who looked like him (dark-skinned). In the film festival was mostly white men. Experienced the situation Jeff started questioning himself, "Were there Black filmmakers who didn’t know about or don’t feel welcome at Sundance?" "Is there an opportunity to create an alternative platform for them, primarily focused on content created by African Americans, for Black audiences? If I created such an opportunity, would anyone come?". This three transformative questions are the reason behind American Black Film Festival (ABFF). Leaving his previous job as the film division president of a prominent multicultural advertising agency to devote his professional life to building the American Black Film Festival (ABFF), recognized today as the leading film festival of its kind in the world.[2]

Empowering Colored People in Entertainment

In creating ABFF Ventures, CEO Jeff Friday channeled his passion for Black culture as well as his discomfort with the marginalization and underrepresentation of people of color in the entertainment business into an organization committed to advocating for diversity within the industry. Through his vision and perseverance, the company has an impressive legacy in Hollywood, having earned a tremendous amount of goodwill within the talent and corporate communities.

For more than two decades, the festival under Friday’s leadership has created opportunities for talented people of color to make inroads into Hollywood and beyond. It has empowered and supported many of today’s successful artists, introducing them to the industry at large when many were unknowns. The ABFF showcased the early work of talent such as Halle Berry, Kerry Washington, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart and Omari Hardwick, and supported the careers of content creators including Ryan Coogler (Black Panther), Steven Caple Jr. (Creed II), Will Packer (Girls Trip), Saladin K. Patterson (The Big Bang Theory), Ben Watkins (Hand of God), Stephen Caple Jr. (Creed II), and Issa Rae (Insecure) including all of whom won the festival’s HBO Short Film award the year they competed.[3]

Because Hollywouldn’t

"While people with color been marginalized by the entertainment industry and it's gatekeepers, our success has been fueled by audience demand, not by industry recognition: Because Hollywouldn’t recognize.", said Friday about racial bias happened in entertainment in Hollywood.

For decades, studio executives rejected the idea that a storyline centered on an all-Black cast could have a marketable appeal, let alone become a global blockbuster: Hollywouldn’t and couldn’t. It wasn’t until Black Panther broke multiple box-office records that the Hollywood establishment began to question its playbook. Also, no one thought it was possible that a Black indie coming-of-age film could win an Academy Award for Best Picture until La La Land, came along.[2]

Despite the global success and critical acclaim of Black films, Hollywood has been slow and hypocritical in diversifying the industry—touting inclusion efforts that do little to close the gap in Black creative and, crucially, executive representation. "I’ve always known Hollywood was a broken and biased system", add Friday as written in The Daily Beast.

References