The Micheaux Film Festival, named after revolutionary African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, geared up for its sixth annual celebration from Monday, October 21 to Sunday, October 27, 2024.
“Champions” was this year’s overarching theme, and the festival welcomed filmmakers, directors, and storytellers of all backgrounds, creeds, and ethnicities, who presented their fiercest, most cerebral and most innovative cinematic projects as of late across the week-long celebration.
The festival featured a who’s-who of diverse, star-studded talent, including industry giants Issa Rae, Viola Davis, Lupita Nyon’go, Morris Chestnut, and many more. Hosting more than 300 dramas, documentaries, comedies, and everything in between, the festival was a celebration of independent films and the people who create them.
I had the opportunity to interview several of this year’s nominees, including directors Rickey Castleberry (The Distinguished), Daniel H. Jacobson (Down the River), Sid Dalvi (Phoenix), and writer/director/producer duo Sulayman Tahir and Jordan Tortorello (Peripheral), about how the indie film making process still reflects Oscar Micheaux’s methods to this day and the specifics of creating independently financed films with the scale and quality of a larger studio but with a quarter of the resources, and most importantly, how each writer found their own unique stories to tell through film.
THE DISTINGUISHED, dir. Rickey Castleberry: A young boy’s reality transforms as he deciphers cryptic messages from a supernatural force in his dreams, uncovering his family’s legacy.
DOWN THE RIVER, dir. Daniel Jacobson: Neta Tezazo is an Ethiopian-Israeli Mossad officer with a mysterious past, sent on a mission to Darfur to intercede on behalf of Gen. Musa Issa Musa; a local warlord with political ambitions. If all goes according to plan, she will not survive the mission. Can Neta catch onto the game before she’s the one that gets played?
PHOENIX, dir. Sid Dalvi: When a psychiatrist hypnotizes one of his most traumatized patients, he discovers something that changes both of their lives forever.
PERIPHERAL, dir. Sulayman Tahir: A woman’s husband goes missing soon after moving into their new home. But strange paranormal events start to occur upon his return
