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I showed my short film "The Dead Pass Swiftly" a few short hours ago. I'm both happy and mad at the response. I'm excited because I got the opportunity to show my hard work to an audience. After the fest was over, I got the occasional "good film," "nice job," I liked your film," etc, but the comments, though appreciated were bittersweet. Although I do realize the contest was rather open-ended in the types of films it chose to display, I'm not at all convinced that all three films that won deserved their awards. My film definitely had the strongest story out of the bunch and for it not to get recognized as such, I'm a bit deflated. More than that though, I'm also saddened by the lack of support I received from the black students at my school. I invited a host of people to come and frankly they didn't show up. For whatever reason (and I hope the reasons are good) they DID NOT come. I'm mad because I show my support for others but when it comes to something that I ask they dropped the ball. This problem is not new to the black community though. Support is lacking and has been lacking within the black community (at least on a large scale) for some time now. I find it rather sad that we don't come out and support our own.

When I say support I don't mean telling me that you hope the film does good or you wish me luck. That's not support. Support means getting off your ass, coming out and showing your face at the event. Spike Lee faces the same dilemma within the black community. People don't realize you can't and should not always wait for his movies to come out on DVD. The way the studio measures his success is how well he does at the box office. So yeah, you might actually like Spike but by not actually going to the theater when his movies come out, you're hindering and lessening the amount of money studios are willing to give him because people aren't going to the theaters. I'm hurt because I really wanted black folks to attend. To be honest, more white people came out that I invited than did black people. Not to say that I didn't appreciate their support but there's something to be said when your own race supports you. I didn't and I don't feel like blacks on this campus share a sense of community when it comes to our own. There are many reasons for this, but I'll spare your eyes the strain of reading all that I would have to say. I will say that this problem is bigger than the lack of support that was shown tonight though. Much bigger. The support is lacking within the black community as a whole. Something has to give because this shit has to stop. It's frustrating folks to be quite honest...

Not to take anything away from the "films" that were entered into the festival though. Jesse Berger's film "The City Green," that won top honors of the night, was well deserved. The cinematography in the film was excellent. Jesse is a great up and coming as well as established director coming up through the ranks. I refuse to give any other film that won the least amount of acknowledgement though, period. Story wise, I felt like my film was the strongest in the fest, but when you have people that don't understand where I'm coming from...what can you do? It sucks folks, to be quite honest I'm upset about how it went down. I put in a lot of hard work on the film and to have it ill received it's a bit disheartening. I feel like the film was written off because of some of the language that was used. I used the word nigga in the film a few times, but that was true to my situation growing up and current. That's how people I know speak. It just is. Not saying it's right, but that's the way it is. When the word was first used I heard a few of the white people in the audience gasp or immediately whisper to one another. That in and of itself let me know that they didn't and possibly wouldn't understand the film. I guess it's an issue of ethnicity. Different races having different interpretations of one another and that sort of thing. It's an issue that's been brought up on more than one occasion from some of the greatest human beings to ever live and I'm sure I'm not the only person that's ever or will ever be stung by the race thing.

One good thing that's coming out of this is that I'm hungry again. A lot more hungry than I've been in awhile. I have to get better and I will. I really want to prove that a black film with an all black casts can be universal, influential, and important to all races. Back to the woodshed. All aboard the Train To Midnight.