This week on The Urban Business Roundtable, UBR Contributor Angelique Westerfield speaks with Stephanie Tavares-Rance who, along with business partner and husband Floyd A. B. Rance, created the Run & Shoot Filmworks Martha’s Vineyard African-American (MVAA) Film Festival, one of the fastest growing independent film festivals in the country. In addition to the film festival, Run & Shoot Filmworks Inc., the Rances’ New York-based production company, is credited with creating work for clients including HBO, Martell Cognac, Reebock, NBC Sports and Footlocker.
The 8th annual MVAA Film Festival took place on August 11-14, 2010, at Vineyard Haven in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and recognized both veteran and first-time filmmakers from Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago and New York. With Macy’s as presenting sponsor, the festival awarded top prizes to four films: The Roe Effect, Joy Road, Good Intentions and Race. Other sponsors of the 2010 festival include Saatchi & Saatchi, HBO, SagIndie, Disney, The Bay State Banner (medias sponsor), Mansion House (host hotel), Disney Home Video, Edgartown National Bank, ARRI/CSC (a motion picture rental equipment company), Universal Pictures, CNN and Merrill Lynch.
In her UNR interview with Westerfield, Tavares-Rance shares how she and her husband are working to create fertile ground for new talent and opening doors for aspiring filmmakers. “The quality and number of films we receive each year is confirmation that our festival is not only vital,” Tavares-Rance explains, “but it also plays a key role in getting mainstream Hollywood to recognize the untapped talent and possibilities within the African-American film community.”
The 9th annual MVAA Film Festival is scheduled for August 10-13, 2011. Film submissions opened September 7, 2010. Interested parties can download submission forms at MVAAFF.com.
Click here for more coverage of blacks in the film industry at BlackEnterprise.com.
Also on this week’s edition of The Urban Business Roundtable, our Executive Producer TaQuoya Kennedy speaks with accomplished enterpreneur, author, business consultant and internationally known speaker Robert L. Wallace, founder of BithGroup Technologies Inc., BithEnergy Inc. and Entreteach Learning Systems LLC. An expert on entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, wealth creation and urban economic development, Wallace has been regularly featured in Black Enterprise magazine and at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference. This week, Wallace takes a seat at the roundtable with Kennedy to share key principles of entrepreneurial success.
Finally, I share expert advice from Shaun Coard, Sr. VP/Business Banking Manager for Wells Fargo, on what bankers are looking for as they assess which entrepreneurs they will lend to and which they will not. To review Coard’s advice to aspiring entrepreneurs seeking bank financing, read “Biz Expert Q&A: Business Start-Up Advice You Can Bank On.” Also, check out more small business resources offered by Wells Fargo’s African American Business Services.
If you want to share feedback, have a question you want answered or have a topic you want addressed on The Urban Business Roundtable, send me an e-mail to urbanbusinessroundtable@wvon.com or to me at edmonda@blackenterprise.com, Twitter or Facebook.
Alfred Edmond Jr. is the editor-in-chief of BlackEnterprise.com and the host of the Urban Business Roundtable, a weekly radio show, sponsored by Ariel Investments, airing CST Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. on WVON-AM 1690, the Talk of Chicago. You can also listen live online at WVON.com. Check back each Wednesday for The UBR Morning Post, which features additional resources, advice and information from and about the topics, entrepreneurs and experts featured on the show.