Pittsburgh — known by some who like to prop up our cool factor as “Hollywood East” — is no stranger to film festivals. As we speak, the Three Rivers Film Festival is underway, and the city is gearing up for the 2026 iterations of the Japanese Film Festival, JFest, Independent Film Festival, and others.
If you were around in 2005, might you remember Pittsburgh’s Hip Hop Film Festival, a five-day, multi-venue event that featured more than a dozen feature-length and short films on hip-hop culture.
Just as the lineup was hitting theaters, Pittsburgh City Paper writer Brentin Mock put out an in-depth cover story detailing not only the festival and its films, but the challenges around getting these independently-produced stories told, stating that “as box-office-busting melodramas such as Colors, Boyz N the Hood and Menace II Society widened the eyes and pockets of Hollywood CEOs, that hip-hop culture shit just became child’s play.”
Read the full story, originally printed on Nov. 16, 2005, below:
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