- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus" local filmmakers get a chance to see their films on the big screen.

- Anytime that you get to see your films on the big screen you're kind of seeing the way that your art is evolving.

And the thing that I love the most about TBUFF is each year that we attend we're hearing audience reactions, we're seeing what works.

- [Announcer] An artist's path.

(man speaking in foreign language) - [Announcer] Photographing a city.

- [Artist] And a lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot it's a documentary of history.

It is like a way of just remembering a time - [Announcer] And movable paper sculptures.

- That's what this art does.

It engages the viewer not only to to look but to participate.

You know, it just keeps evolving.

I mean, that's the beauty about this art.

- It's all coming up next on "WEDU Arts Plus".

(jazzy music) Hello, I'm Dalia Colon, and this is "WEDU Arts Plus".

This first segment was produced by students at St. Petersburg College in partnership with WEDU.

Making Hollywood quality films has become easier and more affordable than ever thanks to new technologies.

This has inspired many to create their own movies and hone their skills.

The Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival, or TBBFF, gives new filmmakers a venue to showcase their talents.

(bright music) - TBUFF, aka the Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival is a film festival in the Tampa Bay area.

We run for about three and a half days, showcasing films from Florida as well as just the rest of the world.

- We started Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival because we had a film ourselves and we were not happy with the reception, you know, received by other film festivals.

We wanted to make a more inclusive, a more encouraging, a more uplifting environment for young filmmakers.

- Anytime that you get to see your films on the big screen you're kind of seeing the way that your art is evolving.

And the thing that I love the most about TBUFF is each year that we attend and that we bring projects up we're hearing audience reactions, we're seeing what works and also seeing how we've grown throughout the years.

And that's one thing that I really love.

Plus you get to hang out with your friends.

- The biggest thing to me, what TBUFF is, is the ability to network and find people I wanna work with, right?

Because I can see what they've done.

And that's, it's like an open mic for filmmakers, right?

But a curated open mic, because you're seeing stuff that they've curated and then you're seeing what people have done and that gives you a lot of information you can't get from just talking to somebody.

- And it's just been a festival that as an artist has held me accountable.

And now it's just like tradition for me.

I think film festivals are important because it allows the masters to be able to tap into local art.

There's so much argument about mainstream it's like regurgitating the same things over and over.

Film festivals are the opportunity for you to really see where true art is happening.

- Film festivals are showing you what's going on in the world, what is making it to film, what is pushing people so much that it needs to go into a story.

There's so much effort that goes into that.

What is pushing that forward?

- One thing I think that really makes it different from a lot of other festivals is just how much effort we put into making it a filmmaker type of film festival.

- We wanted to give a voice on the big screen and an award show that really was impactful for all the artists in our area as opposed to the bigger festivals that really showcased movies that were made, with large budgets.

Here we gave this amazing opportunity for local artists to tell their story.

- The reasons why they were actually nominated for those awards.

They get to watch those on a big screen in front of an audience of 200.

And I remember this past year, for example, the comedy ones, there were people roaring in their seats as they were watching them and maybe some of those comedy films played up in front of only like 30, 40 people, but suddenly 200 people were just erupting at once.

And I did have a couple of filmmakers come up to me afterwards, like, "That was so awesome!

And be able to see that with such a huge crowd."

- It goes back to, it's the people that are doing it right.

We really care and we're not getting any money.

We're not getting any fame.

We're not, you know, we just continue to do it.

We like the process.

We like working with each other.

Why do I keep coming back to TBUFF?

It's my friends.

- The friendships.

- The people.

- Why do people keep going back to church?

Why do they continue calling friends?

It's because the spirit's hungry.

- To make a film festival run, it takes a lot of time and energy.

- It's about packing the bus.

Everybody has different skills.

You can't do anything alone.

You can do some things alone but not a film festival.

You need to have different people that are good at different things.

And even though we could use a lot more volunteers, man, and shout out to anybody that wants to help next year.

But the crew that we have, you saw us on the couch.

We are as diverse as- - It takes care, passion, communication, love, hard work, just all of those different things.

And it's not just about the logistics of putting on a live event.

It's about the care we take in reviewing the movies.

It's about the literal eight hours that Reggie and I spend laboring over the awards and the awards ceremony.

It's really just about the care and the effort.

And that's really what I think is the most important about any event and especially about our event.

- I'll give this straight to the camera.

I just kind of want to thank TBUFF for everything that you guys have done.

- It's always our pleasure to come and party with you guys at the end of the year.

Everybody sharing their work and getting an opportunity to see our films on the big screen, which not too many people get to let us do.

- I will volunteer when I can and donate when I can.

- I really and truly thank you from the bottom of my heart and the many actors, producers, directors, crew members out there because you give us a place to call home.

Thanks.

(upbeat music) - Hey!

It's year 10 baby.

Cinema 6, Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival.

That's right, 10 years in a row.

We're bringing you independent artists from not only Florida, United States, from all over the world.

You get to come and watch these artists do their thing at the Cinema 6 New Port Richey the Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival, TBUFF.

What are you waiting for?

- For more information, visit tbuff.org In this segment, travel to Cincinnati, Ohio to meet Syrian artist Ahmad Darouich.

Learn about his journey to the United States and his passion for painting.

(pensive music) (Ahmad speaking in foreign language) (gunfire pops) (alarm rings) (thoughtful music) (crowd chattering) (Ahmad speaking in foreign language) (bright music) - To learn more, visit CliftonCulturalArts.org Artist and gallerist Asia Hamilton photographs the places and people that surround her.

Based in Detroit, Michigan, with her camera, she observes and records the textures that make up her city.

(pensive music) - Every human being, they have a uniqueness about them that you can grasp with a photograph.

Photography saved my life.

It was exactly what I needed to do and what I was born to do.

I grew up on the northwest side of Detroit.

Photography has been a way of being my therapy.

One of the things that I want to talk about specifically is how mindful photography is and how it requires for you to take your thoughts and focus on something else.

And it was a time where my mother, she had gotten ill, she had a stroke and I was in extreme panic.

And I needed to take a walk.

And I was just walking around and I saw the way this light was hitting the building and the textures on the building.

And I was like, "Oh my God, that's so beautiful."

And I had to take out my camera and started just taking pictures.

And it literally took me out of that element and had me focus on something else.

The meaning for the textures is just the history behind it.

You know, how did those textures come about?

What did those places look like beforehand?

And a lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot is a documentary of history.

It is like a way of just remembering a time.

And so those textures are bits and pieces of a time that has passed.

I love to take posed candid photos.

There's always those instances of a glimpse of a person.

And a lot of times when I start to shoot I'm looking for that in between, just so that I can capture the real essence of a person.

There's a photo called West Side.

I literally pulled up on these people.

It was a father and a son standing outside and it was the golden hour in photography.

The sun was shining, and they looked, it just looked beautiful.

I took a picture of them in the midst of asking them, "Can I take a photo?"

And I continued to photograph them a little bit more but it was that first shot that got it.

For a long time I photographed a lot of nude women, black women specifically.

And it was because there really wasn't enough black women being shown in a way that was artistic.

And I wanted to present them as beautiful in their body.

And that was a learning process for me because I had to become comfortable with myself.

The series of mixed media photographs that I did with merging the textures and the portraiture together was really embracing our history, our lineage, how we go through life from beginning to end those textures, all of that information in there in our being and how we interact with each other.

So there is a photo of a man and a woman.

They're like my grandparents.

Starting there at that unit was pretty much the head of the family.

We look to them for our wisdom.

And then I have another exact photo of a younger generation of a young boy and a young girl because that's our beginning, that's where our start is.

There's this one picture, it's just a buncha kids on the playground.

And I was like, "Hey, y'all, come together, get together.

Let me get a photo of you."

And the pose that they gave me was so fierce.

That's one of my favorite pictures.

You want to be able to educate people with your work.

That doesn't always have to be in the form of a protest.

It can be in the form of just healing the people as is.

That's what I do.

I use it as a way to heal myself and whomever else that comes in contact with it.

I love to give back because I had some amazing mentors.

I've taught middle and high school students photography.

I started a business called Photo Sensei which is photography tours and workshops around the Detroit area.

Another thing that I've done is open up the Norwest Gallery of Art.

Norwest Gallery is in North Rosedale Park on Grand River between Evergreen and Otter Drive.

Norwest comes from the Norwest Theater that used to be on Grand River, just on the other side of Southfield Freeway.

This is an opportunity for me to create a platform for artists who are emerging all the way up until strong professional artists that's been doing it for years.

It was really a matter of wanting to create a platform and space for people to exhibit and show their work, express themselves in a way that's a safe space, to just be yourself.

I love curating shows.

I like to get people to feel.

So it's a big part of my art.

You know, I come up with a concept or an idea and just push it to the limit.

I select the artist that I think would be able to convey that message in their medium.

And it's super exciting to me.

The gallery has definitely taken on its own life, and it is a necessary place for this neighborhood.

I show Detroit how Detroit performs by just being myself.

I'm always gonna be Asia in my work, in how I greet people, how I run my space.

It's all very calm.

When people come in here, they're smiling and they're like, "Oh my God, the energy in here is so good."

And that's because I want you to know that I'm sharing a part of my love with you.

You know, this is my passion.

This is my home.

So it's like me opening up my home to you.

- To find out more about Hamilton's Gallery and her art.

Head to norwest gallery.com Artist Felix Semper makes unforgettable, stretchable paper sculptures.

Rather than create something stationary or solid Semper chooses to give his work movement.

(pensive music) - They can't believe that it just does this.

If you touch it, I mean, it's solid and then all of a sudden it becomes something else.

It expands it and moves.

And it gives you that idea of flexibility, of movement.

And that's what I was trying to achieve when I made this.

You know, it's, and not just the top it goes all the way up to the bottom.

Somehow I've been able to change the way that we perceive sculpture.

It entertains, it excites.

(upbeat music) Hi, my name is Felix Semper and I am an artist.

My first paper sculpture, I glued solid.

And I said, "How am I gonna prove this is paper?"

It took me about a year to kinda come up with the whole system.

And once that happened, that first sculpture just, I took it to New York and I went to Washington Square Park and just kinda messed around with people.

Just wanted to get people's feedback and reaction.

It started going viral.

(paper creaking) Most of my stuff is recycled paper.

And I try to do that as much as I can.

So what I do is I take sheets of paper, individual sheets of paper, glued in stacks, and then I cut 'em to about the size that I think the sculpture's gonna be and then I start carving it.

So all this process is eliminating paper.

It's kinda like the original technique of sculpting but in a different method.

I'm using paper versus, you know, stone or any other medium.

But the fun part about it is that I paint it and give it the original look.

So you really, a lot of times you can't really tell if it's if paper of what we're talking about.

(upbeat pensive music) I was invited to to a dinner, like a wine dinner.

And then I brought this bottle with me and everybody brought their own bottle and stuff.

That's why, you know, I walk in like that.

I said, oh wow, you got a nice nice French bottle right there.

I said, yeah, it's bordeaux man.

Here, let me, when this went like that, they were freaking out.

They went crazy.

Things that inspire me are things that are around me.

I made up Lay's potato chip bags and then A$AP Rocky bought it.

And then all these celebrities started talking.

So it's just kind of exploded that way.

So it involves painting and involves sculpture and it involves performance art, because I take these pieces and I go into the public.

I open them and show 'em what it does.

So it becomes a performance art.

(paper creaking) (pensive music) This is my new series.

This is actually, I finished this not long ago.

This is a flexible wood sculpture.

So I said, "I'm gonna make a wood that I can twist and turn and it goes in any direction."

And then of course, he has a hat that is flexible.

I went to a place where it had old junk stuff and then this old TV was just sitting around there.

When I saw the TV, it's from the 1950s.

I said, I wonder how many people watching it like what was the most famous show back in the day?

You know, the kids loved.

So I was, you know, I did some research and it was Howdy Doody.

So I said, "I bet I can put Howdy Doody in there in black and white, and I want to just kinda bring it, you kind of mix all kinds of mediums together."

So I develop a motor and put it inside, and Howdy Doody comes up, remote control.

And, you know, he expands.

(paper creaking) (upbeat music) That's what this art does.

It engages the viewer not only to to look but to participate.

It just keeps evolving.

And that's the beauty about this art.

I think it expands your mind because you don't, you're looking at an object that is solid and all of a sudden this object does something else.

I can do anything I think with paper.

- To see more, go to FelixSemper.com and instagram.com/FelixSemper And that wraps it up for this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus".

For more arts and culture, visit wedu.org/ArtsPlus.

Until next time, I'm Dalia Colon.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat dramatic music) - [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation Tampa Bay.

(dramatic music)