Issa Rae & Ava DuVernay To Join Kenya Barris For ‘Creator Conversation’ at American Black Film Festival

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It’s going to be a ‘Creator Conversation’ with some of the top Black filmmakers in the game. On June 14, Kenya Barris, Issa Rae, and Ava DuVernay will sit down together live at the American Black Film Festival to discuss their projects and their process.

Variety first reported the event. Rae is the creative director of this year’s fest.

“As one of the first major festivals to showcase my work, ABFF continues to elevate Black creatives from the ground up, and I’m excited to join its co-founders and producers, Nicole and Jeff Friday, in that mission,” Rae said in a statement earlier this year.

Rae, Barris, and DuVernay are among Hollywood’s most successful Black film and TV moguls. Rae and DuVernay have done both film and TV projects (with Rae also acting in some of them) while Barris has stayed mostly on the small screen with his hit sitcoms Black-ish, Mixed-ish and Grown-ish.

Rae’s Insecure was a groundbreaking HBO series that centered on young Black people and their lives and relationships, while DuVernay oversaw the Queen Sugar series for OWN, directed the Emmy-winning When They See Us series for Netflix, and has directed films like last year’s controversial feature, Origin.

“We are truly delighted to get a rare glimpse into the minds of three trailblazers who are reshaping the landscape of film and television. Ava DuVernay, Kenya Barris and Issa Rae are incredibly talented creators whose work and careers we admire tremendously,” Nicole Friday, the president of Nice Crowd, which oversees the festival, said in a statement.

“This on-stage conversation will provide the audiences with in-person access to these iconic creatives, allowing them to engage and hear directly from these celebrated artists.”

ABFF starts June 12 and goes through June 16 in Miami, then heads to a virtual version on ABFF Play from June 17-24. This year includes screenings of Jussie Smollet’s movie The Last Holliday, the second season of Kerry Washington’s UnPrisoned and a screening of the new Starz show Down in the Valley which further expands the P Valley universe. Docs on Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan and Luther Vandross will also screen.

But the festival’s highlight is The Denzel Washington Retrospective, which will see a screening of his 1995 film Devil in a Blue Dress based on Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins books.

Washington, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Glory and the Best Actor Oscar for Training Day in 1989, will appear live at the festival with Chaz Ebert to discuss his career.

Janelle James, Aldis Hodge, Nico Annon, Bevy Smith, Affion Crockett, Nia Long, Meagan Good, and Cory Hardrict will all appear at ABFF.

Issa Rae & Ava DuVernay To Join Kenya Barris For ‘Creator Conversation’ at American Black Film Festival  was originally published on cassiuslife.com