MINNEAPOLIS — In a room full of creative minds and talent, opportunities are changing the game for those mixing and mingling in Minneapolis.
"The ReMix is about people who have dreams, you know, and people who need bridges to those dreams," said Leonard Searcy.
Searcy is the CEO of Westbone Productions, and the mastermind behind the ReMix, an event that's creating community and a unique opportunity for people of color and local creatives – everything from film directors and producers to actors and writers.
"The issue we run into a lot is we have these passions of being able to tell our own stories, make our own media, movies, shows, whatever it is, but we don't know how to get into those spaces," said Searcy.
Inside the Cinequipt building in north Minneapolis Saturday night, people from all aspects of the film industry came together to share their passions.
"There's producers in there, there's directors in there, you know there's sound folks, camera operators, they may either meet a person that can give them the information, or a person that they may feel inspired to work with," explained Searcy.
People like Cherokee Christopher, CEO of Prolific Media, who's looking to showcase what Minnesota has to offer.
“I would say it's an untapped market," said Christopher. He went on to explain, "when it comes to a film being bought in Minnesota and a film being bought in LA, we want to have more substance here, we want to be able to captivate this audience, captivate the network and bring it to a bigger scale now."
Ideas that the city of Minneapolis is investing $3 million in annually to provide free access to talent resources.
"We've created Spark'd Studios they're already in several parks," said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. "You're going to walk into this beautiful state-of-the-art studio with technology where you've got a totally soundproof room where you can record your voice or anything else."
"The city of Minneapolis is one of the greatest cities I've ever lived in, and the way that everybody is connected here, I can see this being the forefront of a film revolution as well, other than just you know, a civil rights one," said Adrian Wilson, a local director and filmmaker.
To entice more filmmakers to shoot their projects in Minnesota, there's a bill making its way through the state legislature to increase the state tax credit for film production in Minnesota from $5 million to $25 million.
The next ReMix event is scheduled for August.
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