Last week's 10th Annual Roxbury Film Festival featured dozens of films that dealt with the issue of racism - both on and off camera.

One such film was "Steam," the festival's sold-out closing night gala presentation. Starring Academy Award nominee Ruby Dee and co-starring Ally Sheedy, "Steam" follows the lives of three women whose sole connection is weekly meetings at their local health club's sauna.

During a question-and-answer period following the screening, Dee, Sheedy and director Kyle Schickner fielded questions from the audience. One viewer said that while watching films, she often braces herself for stereotypical portrayals of race that leave her "hurt, embarrassed or angry."

"I wait for the black woman in the red dress, I wait for the bulging eye of a child, I wait for watermelon mouth," she said, "and you always see it."

Addressing Schickner, who is white, she added, "But this film did not have not one second of that...and I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to really enjoy your movie."

Schickner smiled.

"For me, that means so much because, quiet as it's kept, I am not an 80-year-old black woman," he said. "I am scared that I'm not going to get it right. That is a big fear, and hearing that is very important to me."

Minority viewers may have their doubts about whether white writer-directors can encapsulate others' experiences in a manner that is respectful and genuine, if not fully authentic. Schickner said he understands the concern.

"I get it," he said. "I'm sure that when I walked up here, there was a bit of a wave of, ‘Oh, here we go ...'"
Schickner was not the only white filmmaker to address such concerns at this year's festival. In fact, one film dealt explicitly with them: Ryan Piotrowicz's "The Project," which tells the story of white filmmaker's making a documentary about black youth in Brooklyn.

Piotrowicz explained that telling the story from the viewpoint of young, well-to-do white filmmakers, rather than from the perspective of housing project inhabitants, allowed him to retain the subjects of the documentary's principal characters without speaking on their behalf.

Though his film's screening was both well attended and well received, Piotrowicz said "The Project" has faced its share of criticism at other festivals.

"There has been a small but very vocal minority of people who really had some really strong reactions against the film," he said. Some detractors voiced displeasure with Piotrowicz's portrayal of poverty, drug commerce and violence within black housing projects.

What's interesting about those detractors, he said, is their race.

"The funny thing is, black people seem to agree that I engage with these issues with courage and concern, giving them the serious weight they deserve," said Piotrowicz. "It's only certain of these white so-called liberals who seem to have a problem with it."

White people dealing with race and privilege is also at the forefront of "Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North."

The documentary follows Katrina Browne after she discovers that her ancestors, the DeWolfs, were the largest slave-trading family in American history.

Browne unites other DeWolf descendants from across the country, and together they visit Bristol, R.I., their ancestral hometown - founded largely on profits from the slave trade. From there, the group travels to former slave plantations in Cuba, where slaves made rum, to Ghana, where the African slaves were shipped off. Gradually, they begin to realize that their own privilege is connected to the historic legacy of slavery.

One of the documentary's most poignant scenes features a black project co-producer, Juanita Brown, who is coerced into talking to the family.

"If you grew up where I grew up, you'd be pissed off, you know?" Brown says. "Anybody who's alive or paying attention should be pissed off, and the fact that white people are not pissed off means that they are not paying attention."

The history of slavery and its long-term effects are addressed in "Black Ice," which received this year's Best Documentary Short award. Recovering the nearly lost story of black involvement in the sport of hockey in the late-19th and early-20th century, the movie was directed and produced by white Canadian historians and brothers George Fosty and Darril Fosty.

George Fosty led a brief but animated Q&A session after the documentary's screening. He was joined by Drakeford Levi, who serves on the executive board of the Black Ice Project, which seeks to increase involvement of people of color in ice hockey.

As Levi explained, George Fosty's race has assisted with the Black Ice Project's struggle to be taken seriously in the eyes of the hockey establishment, including the National Hockey League.

"It really helps that George is white," Levi said. "Whenever we talk to [potential financiers], they always suspect that we have some sort of agenda. But what can they say about George, with his intense passion? What agenda could he have except for a commitment to the truth?"

Levi was not the only person at the festival to report encountering racism in the film industry.

Thinking back to meetings with Hollywood studio executives about "Steam," Schickner recalled being asked to "cut out Ruby Dee's character." Nobody wants to see a movie about old women, Schickner said he was told, "especially African American, that was the subtext."

Schickner also spoke about the privilege accorded to white filmmakers in the studio system.

"I would have friends - much more talented females and much more talented people of color and really much more talented women of color - that were writers, and I would get meetings easier," he said.

While socially-conscious filmmakers like Schickner, Piotrowicz and the Fosty brothers represent only a fraction of white writers and directors working in the film industry, their efforts are nonetheless encouraging.

"My feeling is we have enough films that star straight white men in the world," said Schickner. "There are other stories to tell."

Dee later added that while such films can be "true and noble," they only make up "part of the story," insisting that it's up to the independent filmmakers like those at the Roxbury Film Festival to "make films that are not the norm about Africans."

Source: BayStateBanner.com

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