Company/Organization Profiles | Local Industry

The Color of Film: Collaboration

1 May , 1999  

Written by Alia-Anor Akaeze | Posted by:

A new organization aims to provide a cohesive resource of and for minority filmmaking talent.

About a year ago, Michael Trent was a screenwriting student at Boston University in search of African-American actors for a script reading. Lisa Simmons was an African-American actor who was concerned about the lack of an organized community of minority talent in New England. Today, they are collaborators.

The Color of Film Collaborative is about connections. It’s about resources. And yes, it’s definitely about filmmaking. COFC, the fledgling organization co-founded by Trent and Simmons, has taken as its mission the formidable task of providing New England with a cohesive resource of and for minority filmmaking talent.

"I was having problems finding black actors," says Michael Trent. "There were plenty of black women actors, but it was difficult finding black male actors."

Lisa Simmons nodded. "I would go to auditions, and I would see [African-American] people that I had never seen before. I would always get people’s phone numbers and addresses and tell them that I really wanted to put together a collaborative. I think it’s really important that we all work together."

It wasn’t until she met and shared her ideas with Trent that the Collaborative started to happen. For months, they met regularly to talk about goals and mission and how to realize their vision–and then one day in October 1998, they decided to just do it.

Three people showed up for the inaugural meeting of the Color of Film Collaborative. Discouraged, Trent and Simmons planned the December meeting. "We decided to do a massive mailing and to employ a theme: ‘Where Are the Black Actors of Boston?’" Simmons recalls. Kevin Fennessy of Kevin Fennessy Casting agreed to speak to the group about the business of casting people of color in Boston. This time, almost 40 people attended.

"We were like, ‘Yes, yes, this is it!’" relates Simmons. In January, they again regrouped, and

February’s meeting–"What’s Next for the Writer of Color? From ‘Booty Call’ to ‘Eve’s

Bayou’"–pulled in another 35 to 40 people. "People are starting to get an idea of who we are."

February’s meeting also gave birth to a monthly screenwriting support group, Scribes. At the April screenwriting meeting, Violet Burch arrived with 15 copies of her script-in-progress to share with the group. She hopes to have it completed and ready to submit to screenwriting competitions, with the blessing of Scribes.

Trent and Simmons hope eventually to expand the scope of COFC’s mission to include support for artists of color in theater and the visual arts, an online presence, and branches of the Collaborative in other states throughout New England and beyond. There is also talk of workshops, community outreach, and mentoring of at-risk youth.

For now, however, they are hard at work doing the things that an upstart nonprofit organization has to do not only to survive, but also to thrive: forging alliances, securing funding, growing a membership base.

If Violet Burch is any indication, they’re on the right track.

The next meeting of the Color of Film Collaborative will be held on Monday, May 24, at 330 Stuart Street, Boston, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. A donation of $5 is requested to cover the cost of refreshments. For more information about the Collaborative and Scribes, contact Michael Trent or Lisa Simmons at (617) 576-9886, or direct email to coloroffilm@att.net.


The next meeting of the Color of Film Collaborative will be held on Monday, May 24, at 330 Stuart Street, Boston, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. A donation of $5 is requested to cover the cost of refreshments. For more information about the Collaborative and Scribes, contact Michael Trent or Lisa Simmons at (617) 576-9886, or direct email to coloroffilm@att.net.

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