The International Black Women’s Film Festival is now Black Laurel Films (2017)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2017, San Francisco, CA – The International Black Women’s Film Festival is rebranding to Black Laurel Films.
“It’s time,” said founder and director Adrienne M. Anderson who has produced and programmed the festival for over 15 years. “The ‘passive viewing’ model of a traditional festival is difficult for niche festivals and it wasn’t sustainable –especially in a film saturated market like the San Francisco Bay Area.”
After multiple surveys, viewership research, and audience development experiments, she decided to revisit what worked and what didn’t work. The result was Black Laurel Films.
Using multiple visual platforms and social media, Black Laurel Films will present and distribute films that normalize the presence of women of color as equitable partners in creative visual storytelling. It’s an objective of Black Laurel Films to offer all audiences other intriguing, well written, and innovative movie going options with the goal of disrupting formulaic Hollywood stereotypes of Black women on screen.
Rebranding the festival includes programmatic changes, expanded partnerships and in-theater programming, an Advisory Board, filmmaker panels and workshops, non-theatrical distribution options, expanded film events, VOD revenue sharing opportunities, and expanding narrative, comedic, and speculative fiction categories.
Until late-Fall 2017, Black Laurel Films will be referred in marketing materials as “Black Laurel Films, f.k.a., the International Black Women’s Film Festival”.
Social media accounts, marketing materials, etc., will be changed from the International Black Women’s Film Festival to Black Laurel Films.
The Black Laurel Films website is: www.blacklaurelfilms.com
All inquiries and questions can be referred to: press@blacklaurelfilms.com
###
Adrienne M. Anderson, Executive Director
Black Laurel Films
