San Diego Black Film Festival

The San Diego Black Film Festival is one of the largest black film festivals in the country. It is held in southern California recognizes African American and movies and production. The festival was founded in 2003, and takes place every year during the last week of January in San Diego, California. People from all over southern California and even across the United States attend this festival every year and in the year 2010, famous musical artist, Jay-Z attended. There are numerous stars who attend the festival and is proven to be a popular event for the “greater” figures of the United States. The festival’s motto is "Spotlight on African American and African Diaspora Cinema.” The San Diego Black film festival was created in order to preserve African American film and has succeeded in this so far.

The San Diego Black Film Festival, originally known as the Noir Film Festival, was started nine years ago in a room at a Gaslamp hotel (3). There were only three films shown, and less than 100 people attended. In 2006 the name of the festival was changed because the organizers of the event figured out that many people were getting “Noir Film” confused “Film Noir”, so they changed the event name to the San Diego Black Film Festival. Since then, the festival attendance has boomed. By 2011, This festival is known as one of the biggest black film festivals in the United States and one of the biggest festivals in all of southern California. This year (2011) 15,000-30,000 attended the festival. The organizers of the festival cannot believe how far the festival has come since its stint at a Gaslamp Hotel and its organizers are amazed by the quantity of people that attend this event of African American Film preservation. The Black Film Festival is centered at downtown San Diego’s Westfield Horton Plaza Mall. The movies and films are shown at Regal United Artists Theatre and this theatre is located on the fourth and fifth floor of the plaza mall.

The San Diego Black Film Festival screens more than 100 films each year. There are a variety of categories and they include; Comedy, Drama, Documentaries, Animation, GLBT, Horror, Religious, Foreign/African Diaspora, Shorts, Feature Films and music videos. The event continues to grow and currently (2011) stands as one of the top tier festivals in the United States and one of the biggest on the west coast (3).

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