In a city that has long defined itself through movement and music, a new festival is asking Memphis to remember its grammar of resistance.
The inaugural AIN’T Film Festival is the brainchild of filmmaker and organizer Zaire Love, MFA, whose mission is “to honor, amplify, and immortalize the stories and voices of the Black South.” For Love, the name says it all.
“AIN’T is resistance and it’s also an affirmation,” she says. “We need to remember our ‘ain’ts’ — the movements that came before us and the power we have to build the city we want to be in.”
That dual mission guides a weekend designed to move audiences from spectators to participants. Opening night, Thursday, February 26, promises what Love calls “a ball.” The kickoff includes a world-building workshop by 5ifth Floor Agency, lite bites (a slate of one-minute shorts), and a Memphis Makers screening block featuring local creatives. A festival zine invites artists working beyond film into the movement, underscoring that AIN’T is as much about community-making as moviemaking.
On screen, resistance and affirmation unfold in intimate, everyday frames. Love points to “Frames of the South” by Kam Darko, a two-minute meditation on Black life in Mississippi — fish fries, landscapes, ordinary brilliance — as an example of how beauty itself can be defiance. Other selections tackle cultural erasure and food apartheid head-on. In Delta Grown, creative Aallyah Wright documents a Black woman who opened a grocery store in the Mississippi Delta to combat food deserts, grounding big themes like economic injustice in lived Southern experience.
Friday night shifts to a communal vibe at The Artist Table, with films on Southern foodways sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance. Chef Daishu will serve a catfish dinner with spaghetti, salad, and sweet tea — a quintessential Memphis spread. “People like to eat!” Love laughs, adding that with events, “If food’s involved, I might come!”
Saturday extends the festival beyond the screen with a self-guided AIN’T City Guide, spotlighting local restaurants, parks, and pop-up gatherings, from postcard-writing to encourage voter turnout at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church to black history trivia at The Four Way. The idea is simple: spark conversation, build connection, and offer what Love calls “another pathway” to activism through movies, meals, creativity, and community.
In a crowded cultural calendar, AIN’T stands a part by pairing entertainment with civic engagement. Success, Love says, looks like a packed room of people declaring, “This is dope — and we need more of it.” Not just once a year, but again and again.
AIN’T Film Festival, Malco Powerhouse Cinema, 540 S. Front Street, Thursday, February 26, 6:30 p.m.; The Artist Table, 412 S. Main Street, Friday, February 27, 6:30 p.m.; AIN’T City Guide Tour, various locations, Saturday, February 28.