For nine days in August, the area just south of Cape Cod becomes filled with thousands of film lovers, flocking to a Massachusetts island for the fun-filled, film-filled week and a half-long Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival (MVAAFF).
“It's beautiful, it's our happy place,” Stephanie Tavares-Rance, co-founder of the MVAAFF, said.
Tavares-Rance, who now calls Colorado home, works with her husband year-round to produce the festival.
While it’s grown into one of the most popular annual events in the region, it didn’t start out that way.
A festival is born
“My husband Floyd was working on a film in Barbados. And of course, I was like, 'I want to go hang out in Barbados.' So, I went to hang out with him in Barbados. And while I was there, I was thinking, ‘Wow, it'd be kind of cool to do some sort of activation,'” Tavares-Rance said. “I went to the tourism authority, I reached out to them, and I said, ‘Hey, I would love to do some stuff with you all.' And at the time, they were looking to get more African Americans to come to Barbados. I came up with three ideas. One was a big New Year’s Eve event, because I was in the music industry. The other was a bike tour around the islands. And the third was a film festival.”
Barbados chose a film festival.
“Barbados is all in. 9/11 happens. Barbados pulls out, and we're like, ‘Oh my God, what do we do?’ Prior to that, Floyd and I had done events on Martha's Vineyard. So I'm thinking, 'Okay, you know what? We're gonna do it on Martha's Vineyard.'”
For well over a century, Martha’s Vineyard has been a vacation destination and haven for Black families and community members. The town of Oak Bluffs was especially welcoming to Black vacationers, with Charles Shearer, the son of an enslaved woman and a slave owner, opening the first Black-owned inn there in 1912.
With all of that in mind, and the many memories they made on Martha’s Vineyard, Tavares-Rance, alongside her husband Floyd, moved forward with the festival, but the first year, in 2002, didn’t turn out as planned.
“It was horrible. Ten people came. I didn't know what I was doing," Tavares-Rance said. “It was the 4th of July weekend, and we went out there, and we did it at this park across from the Inkwell Beach. It was totally disconnected.”
► WATCH IN THE PLAYER BELOW | Micah Smith talks to Stephanie Tavares-Rance
But the couple quickly learned from their mistakes.
“Floyd was like, 'You're not going to spend the whole weekend crying. You've got 10 minutes to cry. We’ve got to figure it out. Don't feel sorry for yourself.' We did it. We tried. And thank God I decided to figure it out, because here we are, 24 years later,” Tavares-Rance said.
These days, the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival attracts thousands of attendees.
The festival also attracts little-known and highly sought-after films, highlighting Black filmmakers and stories.
“Anita Hill came, and there was a documentary done on her, and the island swelled up, and the island came and supported Anita Hill. Another time was when we had a documentary from HBO and Moms Mabley, and Whoopi Goldberg was, I think, the producer, but she couldn't make it at the last minute. We were freaking out, because HBO was our big sponsor, and we're thinking, 'Who's going to come to this?' It was sold out, and all of these women came in their Moms Mabley hats to support this documentary. It was absolutely fantastic,” Tavares-Rance said.
The festival attracts everyday Americans and A-list celebrities.
“The creme de la creme is having Barack and Michelle Obama at our festival. That was just amazing. And (them) knowing who we were and speaking. It was great,” Tavares-Rance said. “A huge Denver contingency comes to the Vineyard as well.”
Denver’s ties to Black film history
Denver has several strong connections to Black film history.
“Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Gone with the Wind. She went to East High School here,” Adam Dempsey, a media producer who’s worked for decades in the industry, said. “You also have Don Cheadle Jr., and 'Devil in the Blue Dress.' But everybody knows his Academy Award nomination for 'Hotel Rwanda,' and I think he graduated from East High School here; I sing in the same choir with his father.”
Dempsey said Pam Grier also went to East High School.
“One of the people who did a lot of the action movies was Pam Grier, Foxy Brown,” Dempsey said. “And probably the biggest Denver connect that I was a part of was the production of the Black Movie Channel, BET Movies Starz!. Everybody thinks that it started in D.C. No, it didn't. Starz found it had all these films because Starz was trying to expand and have these multiple channels: action, mystery, love stories, and all that. And they saw they had all these films with African American actors in them. He said, ‘Oh, well, maybe we can make a black movie channel.' It was a blessing to be able to do a black film channel in Denver.”
Creating and cultivating an intentional space
Tavares-Rance said creating spaces that celebrate and honor Black contributions to film is so important, but the festival does more than that.
“It's important to tell our stories, because sometimes I feel that the world thinks we're a monolith and we're not, and Black people have so many different experiences. One of the things I love about our festival is that we try our best not to show “struggle porn,” that is not something that I am a fan of. We try to show joy, Black joy. We also show mental health stories. We show LGBTQ stories. We show everything, and I love it. It's really important for the world to see that this festival is for everyone. It's not just for Black people, it's everybody who loves film, and to see the diverse stories and diverse experiences we have as a people,” Tavares-Rance said.
The Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival will take place this year from August 7 through August 15.
