On behalf of my co-coordinators of the Oak Park International Film Festival, Donna Watts and Yves Hughes, Jr., I’d like to thank the many people who helped make our third film festival a huge success. The biggest thanks goes to director Spike Lee, to whom we dedicated this year’s festival because, more than any other American director, we felt his body of work best illustrated a cinematic response to the complex issues of poverty and privilege–this year’s theme. Lee sent our co-sponsor Columbia College’s “Saturday Scholars” and us a two-minute promo that delighted audiences when he congratulated our documentary, Life After Katrina.
Another noteworthy film we “sneak-previewed” was The Achievement Gap: From a Student’s Perspective, a well-received, 15-minute documentary shot by Yves Hughes, Jr. featuring several OPRF High School students who candidly claim no adults ever bothered to ask what teens see as the problems and solutions connected with school’s widening gap between whites and students of color. The last student in the video, a self-described “Black-Mexican,” decried the disparity in how whites are guided into honors classes and African-Americans and Chicanos herded into remedial ones. You can see for yourself on our website at: www.oakparkfilm.com.
The two films audiences reported “best exemplified” this year’s theme of poverty and privilege were Ms. Mary Moore and Buscando a Leti. Our festival, which kicked off a year-long “Columbia College Critical Encounters Film Series,” presented the opportunity to further expand conversations as well as to invite new aspects of civic engagement and community concerns regarding the many ideas, mythologies, beliefs, realities and cinematic responses to poverty and privilege.
Directed by Betty Jackson, Ms. Mary Moore, a gritty, 15-minute documentary had perhaps the cheapest production budget, but one of the richest stories told in the narrative of a lively single mother here in Oak Park who, by shining shoes, put her son through college, which enabled him to graduate and become a member of the Chicago Bulls. Ms. Mary Moore’s son is Linton Johnson. Amid a standing ovation, Ms. Mary Moore, now a leather goods entrepreneur and designer, said her famous son only missed our festival because he was visiting NBA teams in Boston and Miami.
The film that had the most expensive production budget was Buscando a Leti (Searching for Leti), a lush, 90-minute feature directed by Maywood-born Dalia Tapia. Given the anti-immigrant, English-only sentiment sweeping this nation, we deliberately chose a Spanish-language film with English subtitles to tell a touching story of a young Mexican girl who searches for her family in the United States. Tapia premiered this film for a national audience last year on Univision.
We were proud to kick off our all-female Sunday program with its Oak Park premiere. “Seeing this film really moved me because within my own family and other Mexican-American families are complex characters just like the ones on the screen that made so many people here today laugh and cry,” said Oak Parker Anna Chavarria, who was there with her teen daughter, Arielle. Anna and Arielle helped launch our maiden festival.
We are grateful to casting director Donna Watts, who introduced the 20-minute Martin Hudson film, The Black Shield, which has been picked up by a Hollywood producer and will return next year as a two-hour feature. Audiences viewed this popular film twice.
We are also thankful that two husband-and-wife filmmaker collaboratives – Jon Poindexter and Sophia Kaushal as well as Pat and John Allen–participated once again with films and panels that captured our imagination and intellect. Since the festival’s inception, they have had the most influence on our programming.
We should send a shout out to the great film programs at Oak Park and River Forest High School, headed by John Condne, and Columbia College Chicago’s Film Department, headed by Bruce Sheridan. Two of Sheridan’s graduate students’ films, Girl’s Room and Tiffin, which we screened in September, were also shown at Cannes in May and the Chicago International Film Festival in October.
At the Chicago festival’s “Black Perspectives” reception for actor Jeffery Wright, festival founder and former Austin resident Michael Kutza promised to join our panelists next year.
Special thanks goes to Oak Park Public Library’s Jim Madigan and Debby Preiser who once again were graceful hosts; Oak Park Area Visitors and Convention Bureau’s Rick Carollo, who hosted our filmmaker reception along with Village Trustee Greg Marsey; and local restaurants who supported that event, including Winberie’s, Sylvia’s Sweet Sensations, Great Harvest Bread, Buzz Café, Starbucks, Jerusalem Café, The Avenue Ale House, S3 Kitchens, Oak Park Bakery, Lalo’s Mexican Restaurant plus lots of treats from Resources Unlimited Foundation’s “Dialogue in Democracy” potluck feast, which we co-sponsored this year.
On both days, thanks to all of the above, we had standing-room-only crowds at mid-day. We received favorable local press notices and high praise from academic institutions like Columbia College’s Community Arts Partnership, Northeastern Illinois University and School of the Art Institute for our high level of programs and panels, and most importantly positive feedback on how we successfully reached out to local youth and why they reached back.