African American studies and television scholar Christine Acham interviews Kenya Barris the creator of the top-rated primetime network show Black-ish (ABC, 2014—). Acham tuned in during the 2014 political climate of #BlackLivesMatter to find a show that veered so far from television's traditionally monolithic or culturally void versions of blackness. Her conversation with Kenya Barris took place on June 23, 2017, in Burbank, California. They discussed Black-ish in detail, and also engaged questions of politics, the specificity of black storytelling, the contemporary “Black Television Renaissance,” and the pressures and responsibilities facing black creatives in the industry. At press time, Barris had gone on to create a new spinoff show, Grown-ish , and to collaborate with some of its writers to launch yet another series, Bright Futures , a twenty-something comedy, also at ABC.

Festival Report: The trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff) was a whirlwind experience: fourteen days of intense programming that left Christine Acham both exhausted and exhilarated by the too-often-unacknowledged work happening in the Caribbean today. The largest film festival in the English-speaking Caribbean celebrated its tenth anniversary from September 15–29, screening some 150 films, facilitating a film mart, curating a New Media collection, and staging both a filmmaker immersion program and a three-day academic film symposium. A cursory look at the festival's program speaks to its role as historian, educator, and entertainer, with an overriding interest in building a sustainable film industry in the Caribbean. Films reviewed include: Outloud , A Safe Space , Sweet Micky for President , and My Father's Land .