brickson diamond - uncovering diamonds in the snow
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photo by steed media service
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Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder, Black House Foundation
The Black House Foundation, which served as an educational support system for black filmmakers during the Sundance Film Festival, was created from the confluence of two distinct and equally important circumstances. First, Brickson Diamond, a co-founder of the BHF, found that the scarcity of a black presence at the Park City, Utah, extravaganza was jolting.
“We knew that black people were here, but didn’t know where to find them. They weren’t scattered; they just were scarce,” says the Ivy League graduate. “It was a matter of us saying, ‘We’ve gone to [predominately] white colleges and [developed] spaces on those campuses for black folks.’ We could do the same thing … at Sundance.”
The second important event involved the critically acclaimed film, Hustle & Flow, which was featured in 2005, the first year Diamond attended the festival.
“Hustle & Flow was an amazing story, beyond what you saw on the screen,” he says. “[The creators] talked about [how] the executive producer [took out a second mortgage on] her house to pay for [the film]. They were in tears and they said, ‘We just sold the movie just before the credits rolled.’ This was a magical moment of Sundance, and from then on, I was hooked.”
The Black House Foundation seeks to duplicate such magical moments for black actors and filmmakers. It provides a place where black industry veterans and aspirants network, fellowship, educate, edify, support, champion and celebrate one another.
-terry shropshire
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