The second annual HBCU First Look Film Fest crowned a new winner this month for its highest honors. Emanating from the Blackburn Center at Howard University, Promise Robinson won grand prize for her film …Young, Black, and Gifted, a standout entry in the Faith and Family category centering around a young black teen trying to find a sense of identity and community in a private school where very few people look like him. The film festival spanned 3-days and attracted stars from the black filmmaking community like Comedian Loni Love and actress Naturi Naughton-Lewis, with the collective goal of building a bridge for amateur black filmmakers from college to Hollywood.
This rang true for Robinson especially, who valued simply being able to share space with so many talented and well-connected industry people and absorb some of the ambient wisdom through conversations. “I learned and quite frankly saw the value in like minded, beautiful black people coming together in the name of filmmaking,” she told us after the event. Even with the obvious scarcity of opportunities in the filmmaking industry, acutely fewer still for people from “outsider” communities, she was bolstered by the overwhelming sense of community during the festival. “If you want it, you can achieve it and the HBCU First Look Film Fest is a prime example of that.”
Even as the creative environment of the gala gave her an experiential education that can’t be replicated, Robinson credits her time at Hampton University and specifically Professor James Balls for giving her a foundation for filmmaking in the first place. A music major initially, she signed up for Professor Balls’ film program accidentally, and it changed the course of her life. “His words allowed me to dream,” she recalled, “his encouragement provided a safe space for not just mine but all of the students’ creativity.”
Though …Young, Black, and Gifted can resonate with really anyone (including myself) who grew up black in a largely non-black space, Robinson finds her focus isn’t simply trying to tell big stories that resonate with a larger audience, but letting her personal journey dictate what comes next. “The larger black experiences are the ones that people have seen, but it’s the smaller ones that will add up to change the world, and I believe my home is in the smaller, close to life, powerful stories.”
Robinson takes the challenges of creating smaller projects like her prize winning short film as opportunities to learn on the fly and be in conversation with other emerging creatives in her field, even when getting collaborators to take short films from a grad student as seriously as she does can be its own struggle. “I’ve run into situations where cast and crew put a little less effort because it’s not a film with a big budget, or they have seen it as ‘just another class assignment.’” But the rewards of being able to coordinate all of the creative, collaborative, and logistical obstacles of putting a film together as a writer-director outweigh the problems. “[Being able to] create something that was an idea a few months ago and see it live and win awards at that, is the biggest blessing.”
The HBCU First Look Film Fest will be returning next year on November 6 – 8, 2025, with submissions for next year’s contest opening up on January 15, 2025. For more information on the festival and a look at all the other entrants and winners, check out their website.
