The 19th Annual Urbanworld Film Festival, the nation’s largest competitive multicultural film festival in the world, is set to grace the Red Carpet scene this week.
The event will open with the BET biography “Muhammad Ali: The People’s Champ” and close with “A Ballerina’s Tale,” a documentary that centers on American Ballet Theater principal dancer Misty Copeland. The two films are part of a jam-packed line up of more than 80 films and shorts that make up the 19th annual New York festival, presented by BET Networks with HBO.
Also confirmed to participate in the festival, Tyrese Gibson and Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson, starring in Shame, a Paul Hunter film produced by actor Denzel Washington. The short movie is based on Gibson’s hit single from his Black Rose album, and was written by Gibson. In the film Gibson plays an up-and-coming soul singer who works the nightclub scene trying to climb to the top of the charts while married to his background singer Bobbi Ann (played by Hudson). He wants to do right by his wife and their children but, his struggle with drugs and alcohol test the strength of his fidelity and their relationship.
Gibson will also serve as the ambassador for this year’s festival.
The event will take place Wednesday, September 23 through Sunday, September 27, 2015 at Manhattan’s AMC Empire 25 on 234 West 42nd Street near Times Square in New York.
