House of No Pain

Something funny happened between the start-up of the International Black Film Festival of Nashville and this year: Tyler Perry. In 2006, as the IBFF divided its screenings for the first time between The Belcourt and the Fisk University campus, the movie industry was still puzzling over the surprise success of Diary of a Mad Black Woman—a genre-bending, moralizing comedy-melodrama with no major stars, yet which opened in 2005 to blockbuster business.

Blindsided box-office watchers consoled themselves with the idea it was a fluke. But then the immodest actor-writer-producer-director cranked out another hit, and another, and established himself instantly as a cinematic brand name—albeit one completely outside the industry's frame of reference. Perry's films make big money, all right. But because they cater to an audience Hollywood sees only as a vague, blobby demographic—basically adult African-American churchgoers—they don't play major festivals, rake in award nominations, or even submit themselves for review much of the time.

Perry is a polarizing figure, to be sure. His movies shift tones with the subtlety of an earthquake, and their vaudevillian shamelessness can strike unaccustomed viewers as pure amateur night. But from his studio headquarters in Atlanta, he's becoming a new model for black independent filmmakers, especially those with Southern roots. As such, he's living, working proof why those untapped voices still must find or create their own outlets—one reason his influence (though not his presence) permeates this year's International Black Film Festival, starting today at The Belcourt, TSU, Vanderbilt and Fisk. If the next Perry is out there somewhere, he or she will likely surface at the IBFF—which places a premium, co-founder Hazel Joyner-Smith says, on "being able to tell your own story, and learn how to better tell your story."

That person could be Shawn Whitsell, a Nashville stage actor, whose short film "The Test" (6 p.m. Oct. 18, The Belcourt) represents a pact among members of local African-American theater troupes (including stars Mary McCallum and David Chattam) that they will invest the same energy into making their own films that they've spent organizing events such as the Shades of Black Theatre Festival. Or it could be Theopolis Anthony and the members of Nashville's Black Purple Iris Films, whose feature Shallow Rustic Affinities screens 7:20 p.m. Oct. 17 at TSU. More than 60 short films, documentaries and features will show throughout the four-day festival, the majority by young filmmakers scuffling for a foothold in the marketplace.

Making do with a lack of resources is something the IBFF knows only too well. The festival has only two full-time staffers; it depends on a fleet of volunteers and the kindness of strangers such as Curt Hahn at Film House, who offered the IBFF office space last year in his MetroCenter complex. From there, though, the fest has parlayed its connections impressively. Through friendships with noted figures such as veteran TV actor, choreographer and director Debbie Allen (appearing 2 p.m. Oct. 18 at TSU) and filmmaker Charles Burnett (4 p.m. Oct. 17 at Vanderbilt's Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center), the IBFF has managed to secure more screenings, more workshops, more visiting celebrities (including two of Perry's stars, Tasha Smith and Boris Kodjoe), and above all, better films.

Perhaps the IBFF's biggest coup is the Southeastern premiere of Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (7:30 p.m. Oct. 18, The Belcourt), Burnett's epic account of the rise of African leader Sam Nujoma (Carl Lumbly). Like all of Burnett's films, its production was fraught with obstacles, most involving the whims attached to its Namibian government financing and support. (Just days last year before the director was to present his 1977 classic Killer of Sheep at The Belcourt, for example, he received word that the government wanted Namibia yanked from a major festival because of an arcane dialect issue.) But if Perry is the new model for commercial aspiration, Burnett—whose work is finally getting a wide audience and acclaim after decades in obscurity—represents the artistic vanguard.

Between the opening night film—the romantic comedy Love for Sale (7 p.m. Oct. 15, TSU Avon Williams Campus), starring singer Mya and "video vixen" Melyssa Ford—and closing-night concert film Steve Harvey: Still Trippin' (8:20 p.m. Oct. 18, TSU Avon Williams Campus), this year's IBFF intersperses gritty inner-city dramas and international films with a broad selection of documentaries. Of these, the most anticipated may be Two Turntables and a Microphone (7:30 p.m. Oct. 17, Belcourt), Guy Logan's inquest into the still-unsolved 2002 murder of Run DMC DJ Jason Mizell, a.k.a. Jam Master Jay. The IBFF supplements its film presentations with four days of workshops, talks and panel discussions, covering everything from film distribution to scoring and pitch meetings. Actress Tasha Smith, who got all the juiciest lines in Perry's Why Did I Get Married?, will conduct a two-day "Actors Bootcamp" Thursday and Friday at Fisk, while Tyler Williams, the young star of the CW's Everybody Hates Chris, will lead a discussion of child acting 10 a.m. Saturday at TSU. A full schedule is available at the festival's website, ibffnashville.com.

Above all, Hazel Joyner-Smith and the IBFF's co-founder, her daughter Ingrid Brown, hope the festival will become a social event that brings together the many factions of an oft-divided city. "We're all about making it as friendly and open as possible," says Joyner-Smith. "We're trying to offer to as many segments of the community as we can reach." The theme of this year's festival is "Southern Style," and the festival's website offers a vision of sweet tea, front porches and backyard barbecues—a vision very much like the milieu of Tyler Perry's movies. More than one listener has expressed surprise at hearing "International Black Film Festival" and "Nashville" in the same sentence. But in the IBFF's version of Southern style, there are sweet tea and rocking chairs for all.