Arts & Entertainment
Director and Actor Robert Townsend Returns to Chicago for Namesake Film Festival
Robert Townsend, a native of Chicago’s West Side, is returning home for his namesake pop-up film festival.
The event will take place Saturday and Sunday and features a variety of film screenings, discussions, a game night and a master class taught by Townsend himself.
The first day will be hosted at Columbia College Chicago with the second at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Townsend is a filmmaker and actor perhaps best known for directing and starring in “The Meteor Man” and more recently his role in the FX Chicago-set show “The Bear.”
The two-day festival includes film screenings of “The Meteor Man,” “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” “The Five Heartbeats” and others. There will also be panel discussions following the screenings.
The event will conclude Sunday night with a show at The Comedy Bar, 162 E. Superior St., in partnership with actor and comedian Lil Rel Howery’s Whats Funny Comedy Festival.
Howery is known for his roles in “Get Out”, “South Side”, “Rel” and his various comedy specials.
The event was organized “to preserve our rights as humans despite the current climate of our government, and the attack on Black art forms,” according to Townsend.
He recalled seeing the ways Chicago was being attacked on a national level with narratives that only focus on the city’s violence.
Townsend hopes through his film festival he can highlight a different narrative about the city he once called home.
The festival will be used to raise funds for the West Side Branch of the NAACP and The Answer Inc., a local autism advocacy group.
Although he will be supporting two community groups through the event, he sees the most valuable resource outside of his own money is his time.
He calls it the spinach theory. The idea that you can give out spinach and it’s nutritional and good, but not every meal needs to be spinach. Sometimes you can eat other things, and he hopes the film festival can do some good in a fun and engaging way.
For more information about exact times and ticket details for the Dec. 6-7 festival, visit the event’s website.
WTTW News arts coverage is supported by the JCS Arts, Health & Education Fund of the DuPage Foundation.
