Coffeehouse Features: A conversation with Justin Fairweather
The docu-short Director breaks his film and its continued community impact.
Coffeehouse Cinema
culture, film, cinema, film community, short films, coffeehouse cinema, hollywood, film culture, filmstack
ANNOUNCEMENT: Coffeehouse Cinema is returning for a Vol. 5 on Friday May 29th at File Systems of Coffee. Tickets go on sale this Monday May 18th, so be sure to subscribe below so you receive the notification directly to your inbox!
Welcome to Filmmaker Fridays, where every week we will highlight our Coffeehouse Cinema filmmakers and amazing projects.
This allows our readers and previous attendees to go one layer deeper on the work that we play at Coffeehouse Cinema. And more importantly, create a greater connection between the filmmakers and the audience.
Today, we are featuring Justin Fairweather, an LA-based filmmaker from Maryland, who gave us the docu-short, Roger J Carter: Rebel Revolutionary. We screened Justin’s short at Coffeehouse Cinema Vol. 1 and he’s been a CHC community mainstay since.
Justin has the privilege of winning the commercial competition for the 30th anniversary of the American Black Film Festival (ABFF), so he will be in Miami in May to attend the festival. Here’s the winning ad!
In the feature below, Justin goes into the process developing Roger’s story and why “anybody can be a revolutionary.”
Thank you Justin for allowing us to share more of Roger and yourself with our readers.
More about Justin below before diving into our feature!
General Questions
For people discovering your work through Coffeehouse Cinema, how would you describe this film today?
This film is a docu-short about portrait artist Roger J. Carter, who uses hundreds of toy soldiers on canvas to create striking portraits of black revolutionaries.
Coffeehouse Cinema is about creating space for intimate stories. Looking back now, what part of this film feels most personal to you?
The film digs into how much Roger values his community, his family, and the capacity for ideas to bring change among opposing forces attempting to silence. These are all ideals that I greatly value myself, and are a big part of why I was drawn to telling Roger’s story.
Now that some time has passed since you made this film, what about it still surprises you?
