Roxbury Film Festival continues gaining notoriety in 9th year
Bridgit Brown
Eight years ago, Candelaria Silva-Collins, director of ACT Roxbury, had an idea for a film festival in Roxbury.
But transforming an idea into reality requires work and perseverance.
And a lot of meetings.
“We met with the cultural economic development program at Mass Cultural Council,” says Silva-Collins. “About six months later, we met with a woman who worked for the Museum of Fine Arts and she introduced us to someone at The Boston Foundation where we pitched the idea of having a film series in Roxbury.”
It was that meeting that resulted in initial funding of $5,000. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was enough to get the festival started in 1999. The Dudley Film Festival, co-founded by ACT Roxbury, screened 14 films and, with no featured guest, still brought in 75 attendees. Full story
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Roxbury native teaches
world-class acting techniques
Bridgit Brown
Susan Batson’s acting workshop is already booked to capacity. Scheduled to take place on Friday, August 3 as one of the activities in this year’s Roxbury Film Festival, the workshop will walk a selected group of actors through a series of exercises aimed at getting actors and actresses to drop into the character’s needs, recognize the public persona and search out the tragic flow in a monologue.
As the artistic director of Black Nexxus Inc., a first-rate Los Angeles- and New York-based studio for serious actors, Batson has a plethora of techniques to develop what she calls the actor’s “instrument,” or the self.
Born and raised in Roxbury, Batson’s mother was able to recognize and nurture her instrument at a very young age. “When I was eight years old, my mother took me to the Boston Children’s Theatre as a way to find something to do with my energy,” says Batson. “She said she thought that the people at the Boston Children’s Theatre would understand me and it was very true and quite wonderful.” Full story
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