NYWIFT Blog

State of the Industry: A Conversation of Lydia Darly of the Nova Frontier Film Festival and Lab
NYWIFT sits down with members of the film and television community for a look at how the global COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the industry, particularly those who work in the indie and art house world. And how women are adapting, evolving, and growing creatively. If you would like to share your story please contact us at communications@nywift.org. We are compiling a NYWIFT Emergency Resource Directory on our homepage – please continue to check back as we update it with the latest information. 
 
 

By Heidi Philipsen

The voices of Black, Middle Eastern, and Latinx artists have long been marginalized. But at Nova Frontier Film Festival and Lab, they take center stage. Actor, filmmaker, writer, producer, and film programmer Lydia Darly discusses why she co-founded the festival (where NYWIFT is proud to present an Outstanding Female Content Creator Award), and what she hopes to see from the 2020 edition which, like so many recent events, is going virtual. 

The festival will stream for free online June 11-14th, 2020. 

 

Nova Frontier Film Festival Co-Founder and Managing Director (CFO) Lydia Darly (left) with Co-Founder and Executive Director Billy Gerard Frank

 

What was the inspiration for starting Nova? 

Nova Frontier Film Festival and Lab was inspired foremost by my love of foreign films, particularly films from the African Diaspora, The Middle East, and Latin America. As a filmmaker and actress who is an Afropean with origins from Guadeloupe and Paris, traveling to film festivals with my own films, I have always felt the programming at most film festivals was limited when it came to films from these regions represented, especially in film festivals and theaters in the USA. There is also the fact that as a black actress, I hardly ever saw myself represented on the screen.

After many conversations with my best friend, the multi-artist and filmmaker Billy Gerard Frank, who is also Afropean from Grenada and London, and a cinephile like myself, we decided to start The Nova Frontier Film Festival and Lab, and the rest is history. The festival came out of a place of frustration, love of foreign films, and friendship.

 

The short film Bab Sebta (dir. Randa Maroufi) is a series of reconstructed situations observed at Ceuta, the Spanish enclave on Moroccan soil.

 

Your festival has been amplifying the voices of the African Diaspora, the Middle East, and Latin America for three years. Given the national events of the last few weeks, your festival could not be more timely. How has your festival worked to amplify these voices? Are there projects featured this year that will resonant especially with our current national conversation? 

The annual film festival takes place at the Iconic Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, NY that has been our home since its inception. With year-round screenings, panels, VR, and performances, we are more than just a film festival, but an experience: a hybrid curated program of global films that celebrate our diversity and human connectedness. Our films and programs deal with socially and politically relevant issues and themes like immigration, cultural identity, and social justice. 

Despite the global health crisis, and the challenges that independent filmmakers and the film industries are facing as a result of this pandemic, Nova Frontier Film Festival is fully dedicated to working with our partners to support our independent filmmakers. We are partnering with Laurel Channel to bring a virtual 2020 Edition of the festival.

The documentary Slam Sworded Words (dir. Tatiana Lohman and Roberta Estrela D’alva) explores the poetry slam scene in Brazil.

 

If art is any guide to the times in which we are living, our 2020 program of 17 curated long and short-form films, panels, and performances tackles family, global migration, and community, with immigration and cultural identity as the dominant themes running throughout all the films in this year’s submissions. They raise questions and force us to re-examine notions of home, state, nationalism, borders, and communities, apropos to the times.

For many of the real-life characters depicted in the films, concepts and constructs of social distancing and self-quarantine are not novel to them. They were already living a somewhat enforced quarantined existence in refugee camps, or squatting on the edge of cities and society – caught in the limbo of state bureaucracies and red tape. 

 

 

What do you hope the film community at large will take away from seeing the voices of Black, Latinx, and Middle Eastern stories on screen? 

Nova Frontier Film Festival and Lab came at a crucial juncture and is a direct response to all the complexities and currents unfolding in the USA and globally. Our programs and our NOVA LAB, which is a core component of what we do, nurture and teach filmmaking and media skills to underserved and underrepresented youth in the community of Brooklyn and beyond. Our main aim is to provide a platform that promotes intercultural understanding and intellectual engagement through exceptional films and the arts, addressing critical social issues of our times, while celebrating the diversity that surrounds us. 

We hope that our community and audience at large, will get to see versions of themselves on the big screen; see stories of real-life people and communities from the African Diaspora, the Middle East, and Latin America, which most Westerners learn about only through soundbites and headlines in the media that frame them in negative stereotypes.

In most cases, these are filmmakers coming from countries like Iran and the Middle East that have been banned and boycotted from Europe and the USA, with no access to financial institutions to submit their films to festivals. The filmmakers focus their lens on people caught up in the maelstrom of wars, oppression, and displacement, giving voice and humanity to them. 

From the feature documentary Slam Sworded Words (dir. Tatiana Lohman and Roberta Estrela D’alva)

 

What has been your favorite moment from the past festivals? What do you hope to see happen with the festival this year? 

Some of my favorite moments at the festival is seeing the excitement and joy on the faces of the children and adults in our communities when they get to have a Virtual Reality experience for the first time, seeing themselves as superheroes on the screens. Our panels on Immigration and Identity last year, that erupted into engaging and meaningful discussions around real issues and concerns of the community. The Billie Holiday Theatre bustling with creative energy, telephone numbers being exchanged, passionate dialogue, and folks in the community mingling with global filmmakers and artists as one family. 

The Nova Frontier Film Festival is streaming for free June 11-14th, 2020. 
 

See the 2020 Nova Frontier Film Festival program

Follow on Instagram at @NovaFrontierFilmFestival

Additional reporting by Katie Chambers. 

PUBLISHED BY

Heidi Philipsen

Heidi Philipsen Heidi Elizabeth Philipsen-Meissner is a producer, writer, actress & director with 20 years of professional experience in international film, television and communications. Follow her on Twitter at @heidiphilipsen.

View all posts by Heidi Philipsen

1 Comment

Related Posts

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Cassie Rubio

Welcome to NYWIFT, Cassie Rubio! Cassie Rubio is a Brooklyn-based screenwriter, educator, and community organizer. Whether it’s running free art labs for QTBIPOC youth or teaching guerrilla filmmaking workshops aimed at documenting climate change, Cassie believes in the transformative power each of our creative voices have. A recent graduate of Stony Brook’s MFA in Television Writing program and a 2024 Television Academy Drama Writing Fellowship Finalist, they use their voice to author stories about the harm and healing found in collective spaces. In our interview, Cassie discusses the intersections between activism and filmmaking, their writing inspiration, and an upcoming project!

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Ellie Nix

Welcome to NYWIFT, Ellie Nix! Ellie Nix is a recent graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, where she played key roles in over 25 short films during the three years it took her to complete her degree. With a growing passion for assistant directing, Ellie brings a unique blend of efficiency and diplomacy to the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of media production. Ellie is most inspired when surrounded by people who challenge their perspective and a passion for those perspectives, and hopes to spend a lifetime pushing boundaries and helping bring bold visions to life. In our interview, Ellie discusses her experience as an assistant director, finding film community, and her short film Barreling Down!

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Veanne Cao

Welcome to NYWIFT, Veanne Cao! We had the opportunity to interview Veanne Cao, a Vietnamese-Chinese writer and director whose work spans both the personal and the playful. Her short films—ranging from intimate dramas that explore memory, identity, and the Asian diaspora to comedies inspired by life’s absurdities—have screened at festivals around the world. Beyond the indie film space, she brings her storytelling sensibilities to the commercial and editorial world, producing content for global brands and publications. Veanne currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner and two shih-tzus.

READ MORE

Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Elizabeth “Liz” Bendelac

Welcome to NYWIFT, Elizabeth Bendelac! Liz is a locations professional. She’s managed, key assistant managed, scouted, and coordinated for film and television across New York and  New Jersey. Her credits? NBC's  New Amsterdam. Paramount’s Smile. Sony’s Goosebumps: The Vanishing for Disney+. Indie? She’s there too. Ponyboi, starring Dylan O’Brien and Victoria Pedretti. She’s everywhere you need her to be—quietly making it all happen. Recent work in the Tri-State area? The Home with Pete Davidson. Insidious 5. Manifest. Disenchanted. Resurrection. The Good Nurse. And a standout collaboration with Edward Burns on his sequel to The Brothers McMullen: The Family McMullen. Outside of production, Elizabeth dedicates her time to Surfers Healing, a nonprofit surf camp for children with autism. It’s a cause close to her heart, combining her love of the ocean with her commitment to community and empathy. Elizabeth is also an adjunct faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology where she developed and teaches a course on location management. Elizabeth: She doesn’t just do locations. She produces. And producing, for her, has rules. Collaborate with directors who share her values. Strong roles for women of color. Fresh takes on stories you thought you knew. Films with the elegance of Merchant & Ivory but the punch to succeed in the real world. Films that leave a mark. To that end, she’s developing two scripts with award-winning playwright Montserrat Mendez. Exploring genre mash-ups. Shaking up narratives. Figuring out new ways to make audiences sit up, pay attention, maybe even gasp. Because whether it’s a location or a story, Elizabeth Bendelac knows how to map the journey. She knows the destination. And she will get you there.

READ MORE
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER
css.php