Photo: RoxFilm Fest
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The 27th annual Roxbury International Film Festival is underway in Boston.
Created to honor underrepresented communities in the film industry, the festival kicked off on Juneteenth at the Museum of Fine Arts with a screening of Paint Me a Road Out of Here, a documentary directed by Catherine Gund and executive produced by "Black-ish" star and Harvard graduate, Yara Shahidi.
The women-led, black owned event was created by sisters Lisa and Alison Simmons to provide a space for film makers that are often ignored by traditional platforms.
"It is basically a festival that screens films that uplift voices of people of color," says Lisa Simmons, festival founder and executive director. "Often times voices that you have never seen or heard in mainstream media."
Marketed as the largest film festival in New England, the 9-day event will showcase over 100 works from all formats including shorts, feature-length films, documentaries and animation.
Lisa Simmons says shining a light on the stories made by and for people of color has always been their mission, screening more than 750 films for over 40,000 attendees since 1999.
"It is all about creating community. It's about giving local actors an opportunity to read local scripts in our daily script reads. It's about bringing in experts from the community to do moderated Q&A's from subject matters that the films are talking about. So, all of that breeds community."
Previous guests have included Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, Grammy winner Ruby Dee and Ava DuVernay, the first African American woman nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes.
This year attendees can watch screenings at the MFA Boston, A.R.T.'s Hibernian Hall, Mass College of Art & Design, Haley House Bakery and Just-Bookish in Dorchester.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Carl Stevens (@CarlWBZ) reports.