An all black cast improvised a movie selected by the audience and we were crying in tears due to the work of Gary Anthony Williams (Boston Legal, Boondocks), Jordan Black (Community, SNL), Cedric Yarbrough (Reno911!, Boondocks), Danielle Gaither (MADtv), and Karen Maruyama (The Campaign) for their version of Aladdin. A song, "You're my friend, so what?" sung to us like a Disney classic had the audience busting it's guts. The cast doesn't get to make all the choices, but the audience gets to tweak the story quite a bit. Instead of taking place in the desert the black version took place in 80's Memphis, Tennessee. Aladdin's name was changed to Jiminy Jinkins and his problem wasn't just being poor it was not having a solid afro.
Before this late night of mirth and racism that's okay because it was done by an all black cast were the many shorts shown. Some far away entries from Belgium and Germany marked a first for the festival. The one from Belgium featured a zombie birth and was prior featured at fantastic fest, the one from Germany obviously would be about porn being made.
There were songs of dildos, an animation of cat penetration and sex ninjas giving each film a unique look and comedy choice.
My favorite of the shorts I saw were Don't Walk by Stephen Cedars, Benji Kleiman, Scott Yacyshyn , which had the trouble of shooting near a school with limited time to film at a cross walk. The very well done The Mistake by Bryan Moses, who shot it in 8 hours and on his honeymoon while in the US.
