Positive
Negative Film Festival On Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of March, Don Valley stadium saw the Positive Negative film festival draw a select audience of local black community representatives. The festival opened on Saturday afternoon with a large display of film equipment, followed by a presentation by a Panasonic Film representative. A large array of food and drink preceded the main event of the day, a preview of the film Colour Blind. Produced and directed by Davon E Johnson and written by a young American-Korean refugee, the story is about resettlement in America, building friendships and loyalty, leading to murder and robbery with hints of retribution. Shot and filmed around the streets and houses of Denver, Colorado, Davon told me about the difficulties he’s faced as a black film producer trying to establish himself in the sporting town of Colorado; “Arts and culture at home are not focused on like sports, which is a real shame.” Colour Blind – “Colour spelt the English way,” is Davon’s second film, his first being a documentary about black people living in the early American West; “Black people were the first in America’s west. Always the trend setters, they dressed as cowboys a long time before white settlements out west began.” Positive Negative Film’s organisers, Carl Baker and Angela Bough, stressed the need to further develop black media, filmmaking and media training in Sheffield. I asked why they’d chosen Don Valley rather than somewhere in Burngreave. Carl replied, “We sought a location within Burngreave, however this was out of our price range. Don Valley were willing to support us at short notice, giving us full support”. Carl explained that they were planning a much larger event in August, much closer to the community where he resides.
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