Howard University alumna Cyan Shreve won the inaugural HBCU First Look Film Festival held at Howard University this past November. Shreve who graduated from Howard this past spring, won the category for Best Family and Faith film and the first-place grand prize for her film, Sincerely, Jonah. Sincerely, Jonah tells the story of a single father who discovers that he is terminally ill. After learning about his terminal illness, he is torn between resignation and perseverance.

In a short interview, I asked Cyan to tell me about her inspiration for the film, how she heard about the First Look Film Festival, and her plans for the future now that she has won.

What is your inspiration behind Sincerely, Jonah?

Shreve: A year before taking my senior thesis class, which I made Sincerely, Jonah for I met a man off the street, and he seemed to be having a really bad day. He started venting to me and my friend about how he was torn between moving to a new city for a new job or staying in D.C. for his vivacious and bubbly two-year-old girl in the midst of a strenuous divorce and custody battles. That really resonated with me because my parents went through a similar situation. My dad had opportunities to move out of state for different jobs, but decided to stay for me.

 And because of him, I’m still here and I’ve been able to overcome a lot of things. One thing I want to see more of in the industry is portraying Black fathers in a different light. I feel like a lot of the time we see stereotypical characters or like the brute or the magical negro, all these different tropes that have been perpetrated for the past hundred years or so in media when it comes to characters of African descent. So, I want to focus my work on humanizing our characters and showcasing resilience and bravery despite obstacles because I think that’s what’s real and what resonates with people. A couple of days after that situation, the man asked me what should I do, should I stay, or should I go? I told him you need to fight because she needs you.

How long was the filming process? What was that like?

Shreve: Once I had the script pretty flushed out, I started interviewing different producers. One actually found me; she was in my class. She tried to hit me through email that didn’t go through but then she messaged me through Instagram. She was like “Hey I heard your pitch and I really want to be a part of it.” Her passion was just there so she and I were working on pre-production for about two months. Just getting locations, flushing out the schedule, organizing casting, getting the crew, etc. In terms of actual production, we originally scheduled four days for shooting and four days for reshoots.

But what actually happened was a series of obstacles the week of. The lead actor canceled the Monday before shooting and his understudies canceled a couple of days after that. I sent a notice to the crew saying “Hey our lead canceled and his understudies too. We need somebody.” We ended up getting somebody the day right before shooting and we just went with it because we already had the location locked and everything. The equipment went missing, equipment wasn’t working, and on the last day of actual shooting a lead actress that we already shot canceled an hour before shooting. So, I had to rewrite the script on the spot and find another actress who looked like her but was older. Thankfully we were at an HBCU, and we were able to find somebody.

We finally got her; we went to the location, and they said they double booked us, and we couldn’t shoot there. But one of my other crew members reserved another location at the same time as a backup so we were able to use that. There was also a card missing so we ended up losing a day’s worth of footage and another half was recorded improperly so we had to reshoot it. We used up the four reshoot days and added two more days because on those days other people had double-booked us. It was a series of events, but we got through it. I would say shooting in total was about 10 days and post-production was about three or four weeks.

How did you hear about the HBCU First Look Film Festival? Aside from the First Look Film Festival have you entered your film in any other festivals?

Shreve: My teacher sent a series of emails about the HBCU First Look Film Festival. I was looking at their website and for one it was free, so I was like aye! Then I saw on the About page that it was more than just a film festival and they would have workshops and panels geared toward student filmmakers or emerging filmmakers in general. I thought even if I couldn’t get into the festival, if I could just go to these panels this would be an amazing experience. I was like we gotta find this asap, this is number one on the list!

Yes, the first one that we entered was the Howard Thesis Showcase Film Festival. That was a really great experience, Focus Features was there. We did win there as well; they had a creativity and innovation award so that was cool. Another one that will be coming up in June is the HBCU Autumn Sun Fest so we’re really excited to go there. It’s in Detroit, Michigan my hometown so I’m super excited to go to that one. We’ve applied to a couple of others so we’re just waiting to hear back and see what happens.

What was your initial reaction to winning the festival?

Shreve: I had no idea, I was shocked. And just going into it, I was in awe of all the other finalists because I connected with some of them before and got the chance to see some of their films and I was blown away. I feel like everyone had a topic that touched on an issue that was important and was executed really well. I thought that anyone who won this was going to deserve it, every story was powerful. I was shocked but really grateful. It made me emotional because like I said before there were so many obstacles the team faced to make the film and there were so many points I didn’t even know if we would have a film to show at all.

It made my heart overflow with gratitude for everyone who encouraged me when we were going through really hard times. It was through God and the crew that were able to even show something. From the people on the stage to the people in the crowd, everyone was so warm and kind. Ms. Sheila Eldridge is one of the kindest people on the planet, getting to talk to her was amazing. I was just like wow, it was amazing. I feel like there’s no comparison being at an HBCU, especially your HBCU to have that response. It just feels like love.

How are you planning to expand your film now that you’ve won? Are you going to dedicate that money to another project?

Shreve:  Firstly, I’m going to be using a lot of this prize money for insurance for this film because we did get a distribution deal through Focus Feature. They want us to have insurance to cover three years, so the producer and I have been coming out of pocket these last few months to insure the film.  Now with this we no longer have that as a financial burden, we’re able to invest that into this project. The rest will be going towards other projects. I do want to start a production company especially since I’ll be moving out to LA as well. So being able to start that and create future projects.I do have scripts ready, I just have to get equipment and everything. It’s just an honor to have the funding and to have the investment because it’s going to go a long way in terms of future projects.