On becoming NOIR FEST.

The seeds of NOIR FEST were planted in Lolade’s childhood from her viewing of Malcolm X as a seven year old, and many other classic films like The Godfather, her second favorite. That seed flourished at Yale where classmates, friends and fellow entrepreneurs gave their invaluable insights to help develop the ideas with which Lolade arrived there. Most importantly, the team at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale provided immeasurable guidance and significant funding to get these ideas off the ground. We are indebted to our Yale family, our Brooklyn family and all others who have supported us along the way with feedback, introductions and tangible resources.

Backstory

From undergrad on, Lolade derived glee from bringing people together around hand-picked, timeless films. The first screening she hosted was of Osuofia in London as President of the African Students Association at the University of Missouri. In New York, she hosted the Yoruba Film Series, curating high quality Yoruba films for an audience of Yoruba language learners. This evolved into the Nollywood Diaspora Film Series, the first of which was hosted at Studio Museum Harlem, with a screening of Phone Swap by Kunle Afolayan, who was dubbed the “Scorcese of Lagos” by the New York Times; Brooklyn Shakara, by Femi Agbayewa, and other short films. The second NDFS event was hosted at NYU with corporate sponsorship from Vlisco and Africa Magic and premiered October 1 by Kunle Afolayan; screened Mother of George by Andrew Dosunmu; Half of a Yellow Sun by Biyi Bandele and others. This event featured a panel discussion on Cultural Confidence, featuring Kunle Afolayan, Adepero Oduye, Gbenga Akinnagbe and Dr. Awam Amkpa; and a panel on Cultural Couture featuring Loza Maleombho, Wunmi Olaiya and Busayo Olupona.

Lolade met Raquel at Yale, and with a handful of other students, they founded the Yale Africa Film Festival, a two-day festival featuring five films, director Q&As, a panel discussion and social events. Recognizing Raquel’s pain point in being the sole Black Brazilian on Yale’s entire campus, Lolade realized that the traveling film festival idea she had been toying with for post graduation would need to include Black films from the Global South, not just Africa. Having experienced racial profiling in a highly publicized viral incident, when the police were called on her for sleeping on a couch in her graduate dorm, Lolade realized that this festival would need to promote only positive images of Black people from across the globe in order for the rest of the world to understand that Blacks are not just drug dealers, slaves or victims of war and famine in Africa, as they’re often portrayed in films, but full humans with complex identities and universal human experiences. In the wake of Black Panther, it was clear that visionary Black films could absolutely sell out theatres, and that the world was hungry for them. Hence NOIR FEST was born. Daven attended the second “Secret Screening” on campus and was so excited by the idea of NOIR FEST that he shortly thereafter joined the team.