This time of year, Charlon Turner’s dance card is pretty full. As president and sole proprietor of Turner Solutions, she recently wrapped up promotions for Port City Rip the Runway and the area Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration. Now, she’s gearing up for this year’s N.C. Black Film Festival, which takes place March 26-29.

As festival director, she’s involved in everything from soliciting submissions to planning and promoting the festival’s events. She inherited the festival job when she became a board member – and then vice president – of its parent organization, the Black Arts Alliance. 

In her career dance, Turner has made many turns and spins.

When she was a child growing up in Wilmington, Turner thought she might like to be an obstetrician, but her ambitions evolved and, by the time she enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, her sights were focused on the entertainment industry. She earned a bachelor’s degree in acting and directing, then headed off to Atlanta – a mere way station, she thought, en route to her ultimate destination: Los Angeles.

Family concerns subsequently brought her back to Wilmington, for what Turner thought would be a temporary stop.

“Eleven years later, I’m still here,” she said with a laugh.

First, she got a job at Hampton Inn-Midtown and became the hotel’s sales director.

“I had been doing the starving artist thing pretty heavily, so I was happy to have a regular job with regular income and benefits,” she said. “It got me comfortable.”

Next came a position with a federally funded mentoring program called Outside the Walls. Meanwhile, Turner decided it would be fun to have a production company on the side as a way to keep active in theatre and to explore the world of entrepreneurship.

When the federal funds dried up and she was out of a job, Turner decided to push further into the entrepreneurial realm. She had started her own firm, Turner Solutions, as a side business to address what she saw as a lack of social media savvy in the Wilmington community.

“I thought at first I would get into event planning, but this market is pretty saturated. I felt that Wilmington was behind the times in terms of social media marketing and tried to develop my skills in that area,” she said.

Nowadays, her firm provides public relations, marketing and social media help to clients.
The festivities with which she is primarily associated are becoming a larger part of the cultural scene in Wilmington. 

This year’s MLK celebration included three sold-out events: a breakfast featuring former NAACP chairman Benjamin Chavis, a talk by longtime activist Angela Davis at University of North Carolina Wilmington and a Historically Black Colleges and Universities Battle of the Bands and College Fair.

Attendance at the 2014 Black Film Festival was about 1,000 – double that of just a few years ago.
“I thought it was a phenomenal film festival,” Turner said. “There was a hustle and bustle to the festival last year; we were going from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. The finale was a fashion and film event based on [the film] Coming to America, so there was an African theme. We had African drummers and musicians from the Durham area. We left on a big high.”

This year’s theme will be dance and film rather than fashion and film. The festival will, as usual, hold its opening event at Cameron Art Museum and include an event at UNCW’s King Hall, in collaboration with [film professor] Todd Berliner and the Black Film Collective.

“This year we expect 2,000 or more people,” Turner said. “We’ve been getting submissions from Florida, D.C. and Atlanta. A lot of filmmakers have inquired about attending the festival, and there are more submissions this year ... We added student film category for this year. We’ve had student films before but not in a separate category.”

Student interest and the collaboration with UNCW are partly the result of Turner’s work as artist in residence at the university.

Initially she facilitated an arts workshop for students with non-arts majors who were interested in music, poetry, dance, acting and theater.

“It has evolved into the Black Film Collective, which is an outlet for film students at UNCW to have an opportunity to write, direct, produce and edit their own projects,” she explained.

Turner’s dance, like her individual projects, is constantly evolving. Looking ahead, she has several professional goals.

“I’m planning to get my MBA. So much of my schooling was arts-related, whereas most of my employment has been with corporations,” she said.

“In the next three-to-five years I plan to build Turner Solutions, hire staff and be able to do more, both in the Wilmington market and reaching out across the state … I’d also like for the Black Film Festival to became a signature film festival for the state and be able to take some filmmakers to larger venues.”

Turner said she feels fortunate to work with a number of people locally who have both vision and a commitment to change. Often these individuals have lived elsewhere and bring new perspectives to Wilmington’s African-American community.

“Wilmington in many ways is not as diverse as some other places,” Turner said. “We’re changing the culture one event at a time, showing the community what we have to offer.  Often movie and TV images [of African-Americans] are very negative, and we get caught in stereotypes.”

One goal of the film festival, she said, is to present different viewpoints. One goal of the events surrounding the MLK celebration is to present options and inspire young people.

“I’m really proud of the projects I work on,” she said. “I want young people to realize their options are endless, so they don’t feel so hopeless.”