(Photo credit: Vici Howard)
Vici Howard didn’t get into the entertainment industry to make a film festival.
But after creating her own short film, she was led to the path of founding the Chicago, IL-based Black & Brown Femme Film Festival (BBFF), now in its fourth year at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. The festival will take place July 25-26.
“Oh my God, what a story,” she said as she recounted how the festival came to be.
“It got started out of me being in my feelings,” she said. “I am a filmmaker. Back in 2022, I made a 20-minute short film. I was very happy, very proud of it. I submitted it to over 20 film festivals and I was paying $750 in submission fees, and I did not get into one of them, not one. So I was feeling really frustrated, and I was like, ‘You know what? I am going to screen this movie myself.'”
But she couldn’t just show her 20-minute film as a full program. So she contacted other women of color filmmakers and organizations in Chicago about her idea to screen movies at the Music Box Theater.
“I rented out the 75-seat theater and then I had five other women of color filmmakers…we had a whole 90-minute program. That was back in Oct. 7 of 2023, and it was sold out. It was standing room only,” she said. “…And then afterwards, I started getting emails and messages from other women of color filmmakers saying, ‘When are you gonna do that again? Can you come take a look at my movie? Can you give me your opinion? Are you gonna be at the Music Box again? When’s the next screening?’ And I’m like, ‘Did I just start a film festival?'”
Howard calls the film a “happy accident,” and the serendipitous nature of the festival’s growth has continued to grow. The 2026 BBFF will boast 43 independent films, Tribeca-connected programming, spotlights of Chicago-area filmmakers, filmmaker Q&A sessions, networking opportunities and film distribution discussions. Partners include the aforementioned Logan Center for the Arts, Illinois Humanities, Healing Illinois, the Illinois Arts Council, the Joliet Area Historical Museum, the Puffin Foundation, the Crossroads Fund, the Awesome Foundation, BMO Harris and Vivent Health/TPAN.
This year’s poster for the BBFF. (Photo credit: BBFFilms.org)
Making Hollywood accessible to filmmakers
Howard said the BBFF’s mission statement is “to elevate Black and Brown women of color [and] gender expansive artists, and to give them a voice to show their work.”
The festival doesn’t just cover film; it also includes poetry and art exhibitions. These additions also stemmed from organic growth, such as creators reaching out about sharing their poetry works and guest curators interested in collaborating.
“That’s our mission, just to give women of color a venue, a space to be seen, to show their work, to collaborate in community, and to take away those financial barriers because at our film festival, we don’t charge submission fees,” she said.
Howard’s insistence on keeping the festival financially accessible to creators stems from her prior experience applying for film festivals.
“That was one of those painful realities I learned while I was going through the submission process,” she said. “I was like, ‘Damn, I just spent almost $750 in submission fees.’ And it was so ingrained in our community as filmmakers that this is just what happens. If you go to a film festival, you are just gonna pay.”
“I even had a budget where I got my little paycheck and said, ‘Okay, $50 is going to go to this film festival, or $25 to this festival,’ you know? And not getting into one of them,” she continued. “And because of that, that’s why I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to take away that financial barrier,’ because women of color filmmakers and artists, we’re already dealing with barriers, so let’s take away that financial barrier. That’s just one less thing we have to be concerned with. People gotta pay our phone bills and rent, you know?”
A still from Boldly Bald, one of the films screening this year at the BBFF. (Photo credit: OpusZW)
“A whitening” of Hollywood
Easing creators’ financial burden is one way the BBFF is creating space for women and femme voices in the entertainment industry. Breaking into Hollywood has already been hard for marginalized voices, but it’s specially difficult in this political climate.
Hollywood is “definitely not where it’s supposed to be, and especially in this current climate,” said Howard. “Now [creators] have permission to do even less, you know?”
”I feel like a few years back, before this climate, I could turn on the TV or watch a movie and there was a huge influx [of diverse content],” she said. “I had a little bit of a selection that I didn’t have maybe in the ’90s. But now a lot is gone. It’s like, ‘What the hell?’ …Our films are not being shown like they used to. Not that it ever where it should have been. But I’m definitely seeing a whitening [in Hollywood]. …It’s very unfortunate.”
Howard said that she has received nearly 600 submissions this festival year.
“That tells you everything,” she said. “This is our highest submission year. So what does that tell you? That definitely tells me that filmmakers are looking for representation, they’re looking for ways to screen and to get their work out there.
Poster for Matti, one of the films screening this year at the BBFF. (Photo credit: Lali Finney)
Women expressing life under the patriarchy
It’s important that these films do get seen, because they address the issues women and femmes face constantly from society.
“What I noticed is one of our highest submission themes is around body issues,” said Howard. “This festival is international and I feel like the films kind of fall into one of four categories, and it just lets you know what women are going through just living in the patriarchy.”
The four categories she described submissions organically fall into include stories about body image, motherhood, patriarchal discrimination and relationships.
“A lot of the films from India talk about skin lightening,” she said. “When I get films from women in South Korea, it’s about their eyes and having eyelid surgery. Weight is a big thing [with many international films], just ‘Am I pretty enough?’ and that whole theme. I get so many films about that.”
“Motherhood is another one, whether it’s, ‘I’m pregnant, should I get an abortion?’ to ‘I have a kid, I’m being a mom,'” she continued. “The discrimination of being a woman, just how difficult it is being a woman, that’s another one. …Out of 595 films, it usually filters into one of these categories. And seeing it as a collective, I’m like, ‘Huh, so we’re all going through the same thing.”
She also receives female-focused film submissions from men, leading her to change the festival’s submission policy.
“Originally our policy is women directors, women centered, etc. And I changed that when a male director submitted probably the most beautiful film about his grandmother’s sweet potato pie recipe,” she said. “I’m like, ‘I cannot not put this in the festival because it’s a man director.”
Still from Mahal, one of the films screening at the BBFF this year. (Photo credit: Xandra Yugto)
Howard said she wants the festival to become a bustling community for marginalized filmmakers.
“I don’t want BBFF just to be a place where a small selection of filmmakers get to screen,” she said. “I really want it to be a place where they can learn more about the craft and community.”
One thing Howard wants to add is more discussions about the ins and outs of distribution.
“We need more distribution opportunities for women of color filmmakers,” she said. “I’m always interested in having an extended conversation. I think self-distribution is huge because I’ve learned that we cannot depend on others to tell our story or put our stories out there, you know? I think it’s really important that we self-distribute. That gives us power instead of sitting around waiting for someone to say, ‘Oh yeah, this is good enough.'”
Howard shared a story of a woman filmmaker who told her about her distribution deal, which she thought was a good thing. But that was before the filmmaker realized the fine print of her contract stated the distributor owned her movie for five years.
“She cannot even sell her own movie. She can’t promote her own movie. How is that even fair?” Howard said. “So yeah, I really do want BBFF to be a place where filmmakers can go and get educated, not just to see really great films, but to get educated and be smarter about how they market their films and who they trust with their films.
Chicago’s love for the BBFF
Aerial view of the Logan Center for the Arts (Photo credit: Tom Rossiter/The University of Chicago)
Howard calls the festivals’ partnership with the Logan Center for the Arts “huge.”
“Having that weight of the University of Chicago backing BBFF is huge, and so what that means is…they’re also reducing the financial barriers for nonprofits like us, so we can give it back to the community,” she said.
“We have community ticket pricing and, if you’ve gone to big festivals, their passes are starting at $100. And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s insane.,'” she continued. “So it makes no sense to me to have a festival representative of the Black and Brown community, but then the community can’t afford to go to the festival to see themselves on screen. We’re gonna past the savings that the university gave us on so we have community ticket pricing, ticket pricing for seniors, for students, and even low income people in the community.”
“What we’ve implemented this year with our ticket pricing is add-on pricing where if someone who can afford a little more, they can add an extra $10 to the ticket to help support the community ticketing so that the low income attendees can come. So I’m really happy about that,” she added.
Howard says the festival grows in size every year through to how connected the festival has become with the community. This includes Howard’s own connections to her Chicago alma mater, Columbia College, who offers her “tremendous support.”
One area of representation Howard is working on when it comes to film festival entries and attendees is the Asian community. She says that while she does receive support from Asian filmmakers and festival-goers, the number of these attendees isn’t as much as Black and Latina attendees.
“We’re screening [Asian] films, so they’re definitely representative, but I think we need to a little bit more work there,” she said. “You know, some of them will pop in out of curiosity, or the filmmakers will show up. But we want the community to show up. I see where we need to do our work, you know. …We definitely need to do outreach in certain parts of the community.”
Overall, though, Howard says the Chicago area “loves” the festival as an addition to its cultural offerings.
“They appreciate the low cost of the ticket passes and it’s great for them to see themselves,” she said. “Last year, I had a mom bring her three daughters. I was about to do the Oprah ugly cry. I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was so beautiful,” she said. “And she wanted me to talk to her daughters and I could see the pride in that mom that a Black woman is organizing and putting this together, you know?”
“I love it,” she said of the community support. “We’re doing very well.”
To learn more about the BBFF and buy your tickets, visit BBFFilms.org. You can also follow the festival on Instagram @bbffilms_org.
