Noel Braham, founder of the Oscar Micheaux Film and Media Institute, has set plans to launch The Micheaux Roadshow 2027, a touring theatrical program for independent features and short films. The Roadshow begins in Los Angeles in April 2027 before expanding throughout California, to cities across the country, and into select international markets.
The program takes its blueprint directly from Oscar Micheaux’s own career. Between 1919 and 1948, Micheaux wrote, produced, directed, and distributed more than 40 films entirely outside the studio system, carrying his own prints by train, pitching theater owners in person, and bringing his work directly to audiences himself. In a still-segregated country, he persuaded white theater owners, including in the South, to screen his films, arranging special matinees and midnight showings specifically for Black audiences.
“Oscar Micheaux wasn’t only a filmmaker. He was a founder and an entrepreneur who understood the power of taking his work directly to the people,” Braham said in a statement. “The Roadshow gives filmmakers something an algorithm can’t: a room full of people watching their work together.” Braham also emphasized the lasting value of that kind of in-person proof: “A screening is one night. Proof that an audience showed up for your work is something you carry into every room after that.”
The Institute is accepting submissions from both independent features and short films for the 2027 Roadshow, with no prior festival selection required. Like a touring band, the program will bring a curated lineup to each city, pairing features and shorts in evening programs alongside filmmaker Q&As and introductions to press and industry contacts.
The Roadshow marks the soft launch of the Oscar Micheaux Film and Media Institute itself, which is set to open officially in 2028. The Institute also houses the Micheaux Film Festival, established in 2018, and is building out broader talent infrastructure, access, and career pathways specifically for Black and multicultural independent filmmakers often overlooked by traditional studio systems.
With a program explicitly built around recreating Micheaux’s own hands-on, community-first distribution method nearly a century later, the Roadshow reframes self-distribution not as a limitation but as a legacy strategy, treating direct audience connection as something still worth fighting for in an industry increasingly shaped by algorithms rather than rooms full of people.