“We hope that this film creates a safe space for people to say ‘a young girl feels this way, an accomplished actress feels this way and I do too,’” Said Lisa Cortes, the Academy Award-nominated producer who co-produced and co-directed ‘Imagine A Future’. “When you find your commonality, you find your strength.”
Thursday night – as the 19th Annual Essence Festival was preparing to kick off – My Black Is Beautiful, Black Girls Rock, UNCF and the creative team of Cortes and Shola Lynch presented a piece of cinema that will indeed incite conversations, connections and spark a movement of self-love among girls and women of color.
“I know how challenging and complex the conversations surrounding black beauty can be,” said Tatyana Ali, actress, singer and the newest face of the My Black is Beautiful movement. “I know how insecurities can impact a young girl’s development. I’m proud to say that I can stand before all of you and say that I live a life where I know for sure, without a doubt – whether anyone agrees with me or not – that my black is beautiful.”
By the time the closing credits rolled on the film, the audience of media personalities and tastemakers would feel the same way thanks to Cortes and Lynch.
‘Imagine A Future’ provides a universal, authentic illustration to those insecurities that come with questioning one’s beauty or self-worth because of skin color, hair texture, lip or nose index and/or body type.
The 30-minute film begins with a Delaware teen’s struggle with crippling insecurities and a complete absence of self-esteem. Janet Goldsboro finds her path to beautiful – and winds all the way to South Africa and back. Meanwhile, viewers are reminded that her journey is one that has been, or is being experienced by countless others – including women deemed to be the standard for beauty and/or trendsetters in the beauty business.
“It’s not the end,” Lynch said. “It’s not ‘here are all the solutions.’ This film is about getting people talking about it. It’s young boys watching with their sisters and thinking about how they talk to them. If a kid turns it on and doesn’t’ turn it off then I’ve won. Because then the images are there and the conversation has started.”
There film is the perfect visual aid to My Black Is Beautiful (created by Proctor & Gamble) and the Imagine a Future initiative.
“What began as an effort to target and uplift African American women has transformed into a true movement,” Ali said. “And now this movement has turned into a platform that connects and engages African American women – and gives them to tools to help impact change.”
Film subject Goldsboro knows first -hand the power found in changing one’s heart and mind about themselves.
“It’s not going to come over night but keep encouraging yourself,” Goldsboro said of her experience with embracing the beauty found within her blackness. “You’re going to have bad days but just know that God on your side you can make it every step of the way.”
When viewers meet Goldsboro, she could barely look into the camera as she attempted to submit a video application to attend Black Girls Rock Leadership camp.
By the time she arrived at the screening – two years after filming ‘Imagine A Future’ – Goldsboro was beaming with confident, and excited about sharing her thoughts on how the film will impact the community.
“I think that this is going to be a revolution,” Goldsboro said. “I believe that black girls are going to start loving themselves and taking pride in their African roots. This is just the beginning,” Goldsboro said. This is going to be life changing and it’s real.”
As she assumed her hosting duties, Ali wiped tears from her face as she saw Goldsboro, herself and others ranging from Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas, actress Gabby Sidibe, Melissa Harris-Perry, to style and beauty experts Tai Beauchamp and Miki Taylor and more share the common threads of their struggle with insecurities and self-esteem.
“We often talk about going after your dreams – but if you can’t look in the mirror and see what you see as gold, there is no way to go out in this world and make it happen,” Ali said. “This film is transformative, and eloquent and incredibly emotional because it’s so true.”
The vivid honesty and commonality in ‘Imagine A Future’ was absolutely intentional by the creative team that brought the film to life.
“Stories define who we are and we so rarely get to tell our story,” Cortes said. “We’ll see a singular story – but you know our story is a kaleidoscope. And so it is really exciting for me that we see and hear the broadness of who we are and who we can be – and that we can then expand the mirrors that are out there. Whether you make a collage, whether you write a poem, whether you write a book or put a video up… own it because this is beautiful. And we make the world go ‘round.”
“Imagine A Future” raises consciousness with respect to the unique struggles for women of color. But it also allow the girls who run the gamut of shades that it encompasses to define their black beauty as something they can not only square their shoulders and embrace, but present to the world with pride.
“Black beauty is big enough to hold everybody,” social activist and author Michaela Angela Davis said as somewhat of a post-script in the film.
“Black women’s beauty brags on god and what he has done when he created us,” said beauty expert Miki Taylor.
To view ‘Imagine A Future’ in its entirety, click the player to the left entitled “Imagine A Future” or visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX0FWfkcfZk
