Floyd Webb

Work: I am a writer/photographer/filmmaker I’m Floyd Webb, a Chicago filmmaker, producer, and cultural organizer. I was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1953 and raised on Chicago’s South Side, where I began my career as a projectionist at Chicago Filmmakers. From there, I apprenticed at the Community Film Workshop, coming up alongside directors like Charles Burnett and Julie Dash. I went on to found the Blacklight International Film Festival in Chicago, a platform dedicated to Black independent cinema that ran for over four decades. In 2005, I co-founded Black World Cinema with Alisa Starks, continuing a commitment to creating space for films and filmmakers too often overlooked by mainstream institutions. My work has long been connected to Afrofuturism. I’ve described it as “imagination amplified to the point at which it impinges on reality”—a way of thinking about the future that is grounded in history, but not limited by it. Across my career, I’ve worked in photojournalism, publishing, and advertising, alongside my work in film. More recently, I’ve focused on building new platforms and conversations. Projects like Blacklight Festival RELOAD, presented as part of Chicago Filmmakers’ 50th anniversary, brought together discussions on volumetric cinema, VR/AR, AI, and Black video game development. These are not just emerging technologies, but new terrains for storytelling—ones that connect directly to ongoing work like the Edge of Bronzeville project. At every stage, my work has been about creating access, expanding possibility, and building spaces where our stories can be told on our own terms.