AMERICAN BLACK FILM FEST DOES L.A. AGAIN: Founder Jeff Friday kicks off screening weekend.

The 12th Annual American Black Film Festival (ABFF) kicked off in Los Angeles this week with a star-studded opening night screening of the classic film “Carmen Jones.”Introduced by Academy Award winner, Halle Berry, the film captures this year’s festival theme;romance and sexuality in black cinema. Spawned from the need to see and showcase films of, by, and about African Americans, the event is capturing great artists, great audiences and the eye of Hollywood.“The ABFF is an international film festival that started about 12 years ago at the Acapulco Black Film Festival,” said fest founder Jeff Friday. “It’s a five-day event geared to give black filmmakers from around the world the opportunity to showcase their movies, as well as give black actors and black artists a chance to showcase their work. [This] is bringing the aspiring artists community together with the accomplished community and with media and corporations, and throwing them all in one captive environment and watch all the magical things happen.” Based on the history of American cinema and black films, for that matter, it’s no wonder it took Friday to create this kind of internal “magic” in order to bring black film to a much deserved platform. “It’s important because there are not many vehicles to showcase black art and that extends beyond film and entertainment,” Friday said of the spark that led to the creation of ABFF. “I used to go to the mainstream festivals around the world just as a film fan and I would rarely see films that were either made by black people of starred black people or were really about the black experience. You just wondered, 'Do African Americans make movies?' Then in 1997 I was with two good friends, and we decided to model a festival after Sundance – a black film festival. What we discovered is that there are many black films. In fact, we had 19 film submissions our very first year and this year we got 400. There are black movies out there, it’s just somebody’s got to take it on to give them a place to be seen and that’s what we decided to do.” Originally, the festival was held in Acapulco, Mexico and held the name the Acapulco Black Film Festival. After a five year stay in south of the border, the festival came Stateside in 2002 and became the American Black Film Festival –it’s new host town, Miami. After another five-year stint, Friday and co switched coasts and headed to Hollywood, and for the second year, the event is taking place in Los Angeles. SOURCE:EURWEB.COM