The 30th American Black Film Festival (ABFF) took place over the weekend in Miami Beach, with its Community Day featuring the world premiere of Girl Dad, directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Solvan “Slick” Naim and produced by Oscar-award winner Jamie Foxx.
ABFF featured dozens of films, series and microdramas from across the global Black diaspora — including roughly 90 world premieres.
One of its signature events, Community Day, was held Sunday in partnership with the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau at the Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater in Historic Overtown. The free annual gathering welcomes locals and visitors for an afternoon of film, conversation and community in one of Miami’s most historic Black neighborhoods.
Girl Dad stars Marsai Martin (Black-ish) as a queer teenager from Brooklyn who reconnects with her estranged father in LA, played by Emmy/Tony winner Courtney B. Vance. The father-daughter duo is forced to confront their complicated past in subtle and overt ways.
“Everybody goes through some type of hardship in a relationship,” Naim, the director, told WLRN. “I wanted to show that no matter how difficult it is or no matter what the problem is, if it’s family or if the love is that strong, then you can still come together and put water under the bridge.”
“Mini Mi,” the South Florida-based, 18-minute Southern Gothic drama, follows a Jamaican-American family fighting through pent-up grief during a turbulent Florida hurricane season. It is written and directed by Allison Oddman, a South-Florida-based filmmaker.
(Allison Oddman)
The strong supporting cast includes Meagan Good (I’ll Never Let You Go), Madison Bailey (Outer Banks), Michael Rainey Jr. (Power Book II: Ghost), Sierra Capri (On My Block) and Javon Walton (Euphoria).
In Girl Dad, a broken, used refrigerator sits at the center of the conflict: what seems like a small issue actually reveals deeper wounds that need healing. “That part came from a real place,” said Slick, who is also working on a few episodes of the TV series Daredevil: Born Again.
He said those tense, symbolic scenes surrounding the refrigerator in Girl Dad was inspired by a real moment in his life.
“I thought, okay, what if I had a daughter? What if I had another responsibility that depended on having that fridge? So I added that element.”
ABFF paired many of its films with cast-led panel discussions.
The festival’s opening night film, Strung — screened on May 27 — is a Malcolm D. Lee psychological thriller. It follows a gifted violinist (Chloe Bailey) whose elite tutoring job with an uncanny, mysterious wealthy family turns into a dangerous mind game. It also stars Lynn Whitfield, Coco Jones, Lucien Laviscount and Anna Diop.
ABFF’s Voices of Culture section, a non-competitive showcase of 40 short films created by people of African descent, included Mini Me, a South Florida-based, 18-minute Southern Gothic drama.
Mini Me, written and directed by South Florida filmmaker Allison Oddman, follows a Jamaican-American mother and daughter chasing an open casting call for a hit TV show, as they navigate unspoken grief during a turbulent Florida hurricane season.
“ You know, when you grieve, you’re keeping your loved ones alive in a way,” Oddman told WLRN. “And it’s only in not voicing their names and their memories when they’re truly dead.”
Oddman said her film is a period piece set in the mid-2000s, and a core of the story is inspired by her personal journey with grief. “When I was 12, I lost a family member who was very much like a mother to me in every way,” she said.
And like her main character, Nova, who went silent after her aunt died, Oddman went completely silent when her cousin passed away.
“A lot of what inspired this film was just my upbringing in South Florida. I was raised by four Black Jamaican women,” she added. “ And a lot of those sensibilities were about life, death and the afterlife, and this idea that the spirit never dies, and they’re constantly communicating with us.”
This story was produced by WLRN, South Florida’s only public radio station at 91.3 FM, as part of a content-sharing partnership with The Miami Times. Read more at WLRN.org.