Denver Film explores how to attract Black film buffs | Arts news

Last week’s Women + Film Festival made plain that Denver Film has a very good thing going with its annual celebration of women filmmakers. But it also revealed a systemic problem.

At a screening for Jazmin Jones’ “Seeking Mavis Beacon,” a fascinating DIY doc by and about Black women, there was only one Black woman in an otherwise fairly full audience at the Sie FilmCenter. For this particular piece of zeitgeist Black American pop culture, that just seemed off.

Afterward, I asked Denver Film Programming Manager Ambriehl Turrentine, herself a Black woman, about the unique challenge of attracting Black filmgoers in a city whose already tiny 9% ​​Black population is not geographically centered in any one part of the metro area.

“I ask myself that a lot, and I wish I had the answer to it,” said Turrentine. Part of the answer is grassroots outreach, of course. Targeted marketing. “But I also think part of the solution is going out to these communities specifically and bringing these films to them instead of asking them to come to us,” Turrentine said.

Denver Film already does significant outreach to the local Asian American community with its annual Dragon Boat Film Festival, and to the queer community with its CinemaQ Film Festival. Women + Film seems to be a prime opportunity to welcome more Black women (and men) into the fold. The “Mavis Beacon” screening was supported by Black Pride Colorado, Turrentine pointed out, “and we will be launching a formal partnership with them during CinemaQ” this August.

“Seeking Mavis Beacon” is a wild ride about a filmmaker whose life becomes consumed by solving the mystery of Mavis Beacon – a fictional character created to adorn boxes of the once wildly popular Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing line of self-help computer software. She began as nothing more than a photo of a model on the cover of the software's boxed packaging in 1987. That model was Haitian-born Renée L'Espérance, and little is known about whatever became of her.

Jones’ quest to find and understand L'Espérance becomes more than her own journey, it crisscrosses into cultural appropriation, commercial exploitation, mysticism, data trauma and our basic human right to not exist on the internet.

At the heart of the film is the search for a woman who does not want to be found, unaware or unwilling to accept that she remains a rare role model of color in the worlds of software and technology – and in the hearts of now grown Black girls throughout the world. The race to find her is both charming and unsettling. And endlessly interesting for anyone watching.

“People need to understand that just because a film is made by Black director or something that primarily features Black people, it's not just a Black film,” Turrentine said.

The festival’s 2024 Audience Award went to “Let the Canary Sing!” Alison Ellwood’s spirited documentary on the life and times of Cyndi Lauper.

“I think what I loved most about this year's festival is that it really demonstrated the range of womanhood – and it also forced viewers to challenge their ideas of what womanhood is,” Turrentine said.

Next up: Emmy Award-winning “Ted Lasso” actor Hannah Waddingham will be in Denver on May 16 to receive Denver Film’s 2024 Women+Film Barbara Bridges Inspiration Award.

SCFD honors George Sparks

The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District has announced its biennial Rex Morgan Award winners, topped by a lifetime leadership award for George Sparks, longtime president and CEO of  the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Cultural activist Renee Fajardo will be honored for civic engagement, and an award for innovative partnerships will go to Boulder’s Motus Theater, which creates original social-justice pieces as a way to spark community conversations. 

“The Rex Morgan Awards give us a chance to honor the cultural leaders and organizations who work tirelessly to champion arts, culture and science in our seven-county district,” said Jacki Cooper Melmed, SCFD Board Chair.

The awards will be handed out at a June 5 SCFD block party at 1047 Santa Fe Drive.

Lone Tree honors young Eli Testa

The Lone Tree City Council, in partnership with the Lone Tree Youth Commission, presented 18-year-old Highlands Ranch High School senior Eli Testa with its 2024 Outstanding Youth of Lone Tree Award on Tuesday. The $1,000 scholarship, funded by Canvas Credit Union, recognizes a high-achieving youth who has demonstrated a commitment to community involvement.

When the pandemic shutdown began, Testa quickly created an all-youth theater company that has since presented three annual, entirely student-produced “Future is Bright” cabaret concerts. Over that time, Testa has gathered 70 students from two dozen area high schools and raised a combined $37,000 for The Denver Actors Fund, an all-volunteer nonprofit that has helped Colorado theater artists pay down their medical bills by $1.4 million.

“Not everybody took that time and space during the shutdown and did something as productive with it as you did,” Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said in presenting the award. “I think you are an extremely important role model. I also think raising awareness for the Denver Actors Fund is extremely important. I think (the arts) is a hard profession, and to take this initiative, especially at your age, really shows great character.”

One more award!

Lucha Martinez de Luna, who founded the Chicano/a/x Murals of Colorado Project in 2018, was honored Tuesday by History Colorado at its Stephen H. Hart Awards for Historic Preservation. The project is dedicated to raising awareness about Chicano history and culture – especially during the civil-rights movement in the 1960s and ‘70s – and preserving the just 40 or so historic Chicano murals that remain in existence in Colorado.

Take your pick …

Things are always busy at the Denver Center, but it’s got to be a bit buggy down there at the moment with five wide-ranging theater options, all performing right now through (at least) April 28. You’ve got “MJ,” the Michael Jackson Broadway musical, at the Buell; “The Improvised Shakespeare Theatre Company” making up entire comical Bard-like stories from scratch every night (maybe my most-favorite thing ever) in the Garner-Galleria; the immersive ”Space Explorers: The Infinite” at the Stanley Marketplace; and the homegrown DCPA Theatre Company’s offerings of Jane Austen’s “Emma” on speed and the Latin-infused “Where Did We Sit On The Bus?” That’s quite a variety.

Deadheads, take note!

Colorado Music Experience will pay homage to the Grateful Dead’s history in Boulder on April 26 with a “select symposium” revisiting the iconic band’s four concerts held on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus: At the Glenn Miller Ballroom (1969), Folsom Field (1972 and ’80) and the CU Events Center (1981).

Grateful Dead scholar David Gans, Micheal Sebulsky from the CU College of Music, and musician Kenny Passarelli of the band Conal Implosion will “skillfully explicate” the Dead’s musical improvisations. Experts will also recreate the band’s psychedelic light show from 1969 on the Fiske Planetarium dome using archival assets from the original event. Two shows at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets $35 at colorado.edu/fiske.

Briefly …

Sean Jeffries, who by my count won the first four Henry Awards in the history of little Thunder River Theatre Company in Carbondale between 2017-20– as a sound, scenic and lighting designer – has resigned after eight years as the company’s executive director. …

History Colorado is presenting “An Evening with Natalie Diaz” on Wednesday (April 24) in honor of the Pulitzer-winning poet. Last year, The Word launched a Denver-wide book club called “The Big Read,” with Diaz’s collection titled “Postcolonial Love Poem” as the inaugural selection. The free reception starts at 7 p.m., but you are asked to register by the end of today (Friday) at historycolorado.org …

Su Teatro, Denver’s only Chicano theater, is one of 30 companies nationwide to receive $10,000 “THRIVE” grants from Theatre Communications Group in New York and Theater League of Kansas City. It’s part of a national initiative to uplift theaters of color.

And finally …

The celebration of life for Denver actor Penny Dwyer will be held at 3 p.m. Friday, April 26, at Hope United Methodist Church, 5101 S. Dayton St. in Greenwood Village.