Style Weekly: Growing in the Dark
Still from “Break” by dl Hopkins. Film footage by Danny Caporaletti, Michael Duni, dl Hopkins and Mark Ramirez.
Originally published by Style Weekly
by David Timerline
October 9, 2023
The inaugural Sitelines BLM film festival seeks to plant seeds for community growth and change.
“I was thinking about why the theater, the building itself, is so important,” says Omiyemi Green, director of the Sitelines BLM Program for Cadence Theatre Company. “And it’s because when we all come into that space, all of our attention is focused in one direction. We are all there under a common agenda.”
That agreement to gather together and pay attention provides a unique opportunity for an event like the first Sitelines BLM film festival, scheduled for Oct. 14 at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC). “All of these individuals will come and sit in the dark,” Green says. “And when the lights come up, they will have grown in some way.”
Cadence Theater Company started Sitelines BLM in 2020 in response to the racial reckoning that began that summer. The program sought to lift up local artists of color and, under Green’s guidance, it commissioned a series of short films created in partnership with local landmarks such as the Virginia War Memorial and the Shockoe Hill District African Burial Ground.
The festival is being made possible thanks to a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and will feature three films produced by the program, followed by panel discussions with the filmmakers and supplemental programming including facilitated community dialogues led by historians Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Ph.D., from Norfolk State University, and Adrienne Petty, Ph.D., from William & Mary.
Of the academics involved, Green says, “Because these pieces were filmed in historical places in the city of Richmond, [the historians’] role will be to ground the art in the context of the city. I like to think of these pieces as provocations, something thought-provoking to use as a starting place for conversations.”
Film crews working on Brittany Fisher’s “Bleach” at the “Rumors of War” statue at the VMFA. Photo credit Danny Caporaletti.
The film “Break,” written and directed by local actor dl Hopkins, features two prominent local spots, the Slavery Reconciliation statue and Westover Plantation. He’s excited for the film festival in part because he hasn’t yet seen the completed film. “I’ve been part of the editing process, but I’m really interested to see the final mix,” says Hopkins. “I believe I could see it now, but I kind of want to reserve it [for the festival].”
“Break” depicts a real-life experience for Hopkins and his wife, who were invited to a historic plantation house for a dinner party. “As a parent, you get invited to these kinds of events all the time,” he says. “We didn’t realize we’d be going to a plantation.”
Being the only Black couple there highlighted for Hopkins the disparity in experiences for people with different backgrounds. “It’s kind of like inviting your Jewish friends over for dinner at Auschwitz or something, right?” he says. “It’s just one of those Virginia things that goes under the radar in most people’s minds.”
Hopkins says that directing his own screenplay as well as starring in the film was instructive: “Being in it, I realized a thousand writing mistakes that only become apparent when you start working it.”
Toney Q. Cobb in Margarette Joyner’s “Still Fighting." Film credit Alexyn Scheller.
Also taking on both writing and directing roles was Margarette Joyner, whose film, “Still Fighting,” compares the perspective of a BLM protester to a Black veteran who fought in the Vietnam War. “The idea came from a conversation I was having with a group of young people who were torn about the Black Lives Matter movement,” says Joyner. “One of the things I did, as the elder in the room, was to let them know it may not have changed much, but it has changed. And we have no choice but to keep fighting.”
Though a veteran actress, the film was her first time behind the camera. “Anything I didn’t know, the cameraman or someone else on set knew,” says Joyner. “It was a great team effort.”
Sitelines BLM director Green extended her duties beyond managing the program to directing one of the films, “Bleach,” written by Brittany Fisher, the youngest screenwriter in the program.” The film has already gained attention thanks to a trailer that’s received multiple accolades, including an honorable mention for best trailer at the 2022 Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles.
“The film is about how people try to erase history or only remember the good parts,” says Fisher. “It features characters talking during the pandemic, one making a reference about trying to bleach the past.”
The festival caps off a year of increased attention for Fisher, thanks to her play, “How to Bruise Gracefully,” getting a world premiere staging by Cadence this past May. She graduated from Juilliard’s playwriting program last year and is currently in residence at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut, where her play, “Your Regularly Scheduled Programming,” opens this month.
Fisher expresses a sentiment that was shared by both festival organizers and filmmakers: “My hope is just that people feel something. “The recognition I’ve received is kind of the cherry on top and I’m very grateful. But for anything I put out in the world, I just want the messages to be perpetuated because that’s how conversations happen.”