When Karen Toering first proposed hosting a film festival in Gary, she didn’t know who would be involved or how it would come together, but she knew she wanted to see one in her hometown.
With no movie theater in the city, Toering wanted to create a space for residents to experience films and filmmakers they otherwise might never encounter.
Now, 15 years later, the Gary International Black Film Festival brings more than 40 filmmakers from around the world to tell stories across the African diaspora. Despite early skepticism, which especially discouraged those who claimed the city had never experienced something like this, organizers wanted to bring a tradition to Gary that everyone could enjoy.
“Doesn’t Gary deserve to have a film festival?” she said during the initial stages of bringing the festival to fruition. At the time, she was working for the Seattle Black Film Festival, which gave her insight into the behind-the-scenes work required to organize such an event.
In 2010, Toering and a small group of friends began discussing what a film festival could look like and what stories it would highlight. They also wanted to build a film community in a city without a theater.
“There’s nowhere in Gary you can go on a Friday night and watch any kind of movie,” she said. “We should at least be able to see films about our community and about our people. We wanted to make sure that the blackness was represented in the film.”
In February the following year, the group rented out the Glen Theater on the corner of Broadway and Ridge Road, and hosted the inaugural festival, which sold out. There, they hosted Ava DuVernay’s I Will Follow as the opening film, which helped launch their journey.
The following Monday, the group incorporated the organization after realizing they had created something valuable for the community.
“It keeps that money in Gary,“ Toering said. When the festival arrives, she said, they make sure to visit Gary vendors and business owners for printers, food, service workers, and more to ensure the community feels involved.
Years later, the festival continues to grow. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, it found new audiences online, allowing more people to connect with the films and stories from afar.
“Most of the work of the Gary International Black Film Festival is not done by me,” Toering said, giving credit to the local team. “It’s done by everyday people in Gary.”
Toni Simpson, the festival’s boots-on-the-ground organizer, is one of the few team members based in Gary, while Toering continues her full-time work in Seattle.
With a background in theater and an awareness of the lack of film in the area, Simpson wanted to be a part of the festival.
“I said, ‘You’re gonna need me here,’” Simpson said, recalling a phone call that reconnected the two friends. “The challenge is going to be educating this community about what a film festival is because all they know is traditional film houses. But it’s a good challenge to have.”
“They don’t know that it was born out of a need to be the steward of not only telling our stories, but owning our stories and continuing them on,” Simpson said. “It used to be oral history, but now we have the means to put it into film. We have the means to share and make it a part of many spaces.”
Now, over a decade later, and growing every year, the team hopes to encourage filmmakers in and around the city, and even internationally, to bring their stories to Gary for highlighting.
“Gary has led the charge in bringing people together in so many ways and being the first of so many,” she said, referencing the Midwest as the “heartland” of the country. “I don’t know what’s in the water here off of Lake Michigan, but we have to own it.”
When fifth-generation Gary native Jessie Renslow returned home in 2015, she knew she wanted to get involved in the local film community.
“Great thing about Gary and being a working artist in Gary is we’ve got trains and access to airports,” she stated. “You can hop on a train and be anywhere in the world within an hour if you have to be.”
Before moving back, she worked as a community organizer, which she blended with her love of film to create documentaries highlighting positive initiatives in the city.
That passion led to her submission in this year’s festival, Launching the Lagoon, a film that captures a decade’s worth of visuals highlighting Gary’s Marquette Park Lagoon Outlook Garden, a sensory experience for people of all ages and abilities.
“The idea of capturing … it’s not like I’m not telling the truth, it’s just capturing stuff that’s also happening that happens to be good,” Renslow said, referencing the stories she wanted to start telling when she came back to the city.
“It’s important to be able to highlight a great Gary project to folks in the area who might not even realize it’s happening, and what it takes to get a little universally designed green space to happen,” she said. A major defender of the Gary legacy, she always asks people why not this area for many innovative events.
“We have a lot going on for us and people have to get that shift in their mind,” Renslow said. “Events like this help people rethink our area and uplift their own filmmakers, but also bring an infusion of interests.”
For Chicago native Sharon Samuels, entering the film festival in Gary was a no-brainer.
“Last year, I decided to make my own film, because work was slow. The industry is slow,” Samuels said. As a full-time art director, she’s been in the industry for seven years, but never dedicated that time to her own craft.
“I had this story that was running through my head for a couple of years, and I thought this might be the time to do it. So I just started doing it, and the pieces fell into place,” she said.
Having grown up near Gary, she’d known about the festival for years.
“I knew that Ava DuVernay debuted one of her early films there, so it was always on my list,” Samuels said. “It’s a great festival for first-time filmmakers, especially first-time filmmakers of color.”
Her short film, 15 Lines, centers on an African American man learning about his family’s history and the power of belief in self and kinship.
“I like to see uplifting Black stories,” Samuels said. “I love films that show our history, but I also want to see stories of us excelling and living in our truth. I just want to see Black people win.”
