Interview with Festival Director Gian Smith (The Black Film Festival of New Orleans)

From Gian Smith: The Black Film Festival of New Orleans, in it’s inaugural year, has been created with the intention of highlighting American film makers, and content creators of color. While we personally enjoy movies of all types, by all types, we wish to highlight films and content more relatable to our experiences. As a film maker, often times I feel like the nuance, importance and brilliance of my own film making and the films of my black colleagues has been lost on audiences and evaluators who simply don’t relate to our personal experiences as black people in the United States. Through my festival experience I have found that my best results have come from audiences catered to me by festival directors and teams who could understand my content. So in that vein I felt it important to give yet another outlet for the black filmmaker to be recognized.