Thuh Juneteenth Film Festival Brings Independent Black Film to Leimert Park

Be Reel Black Cinema Club partnered with THUH on their second film festival and we got an awesome write-up by Rajvinder Singh! See an excerpt below:

In Donald Byrd’s 1971 record “Stepping Into Tomorrow,” there is an ascending force of optimism that refuses to let up on its five-minute odyssey.

Byrd’s song served as a standard for the curation of films at Thuh 2022 Juneteenth Film Festival. “It’s not a destination, it’s a state of mind,” said founder of the festival and Thuh Film Club Jacob Gray.

He proudly wears an unwavering smile when he imagines bringing independent films to audiences. “It’s a perspective that has expressions with less conditions,” he said. “To me, that screams authenticity.”

Using Black history and Black imagination, the lineup of films informs what freedom looks like in the present. In each film lies a glimpse of the various phases of the pursuit of freedom, relishing in nuance in a way that does not romanticize these Black lives, but portrays them.

“It was a no-brainer,” said Gray’s co-director and Be Reel Black Cinema Club founder Stephanye Watts. “If Jacob is like, ‘Yo, we’re doing a film festival on the Moon,’ I’d be like, ‘Bet.’”

The foundation of Gray’s and Watts’ clubs rest on the belief that movies bridge connections between different communities, bearing all the trappings for important conversation and one of the core values of this festival. “It’s also about being Black film nerds and knowing that there’s more of us out there,” Gray said.

Read in full here