Brockton movie studio beats out thousands of innovators for nod from Jaylen’s Brown’s BXC

It’s been a big 12 months for Anawan Studios. After receiving the Jaylen Brown seal of approval in 2024 year, the Brockton studio is poised to screen five films at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) in September.

In October 2024, the Brockton-based production company was announced as part of the inaugural Boston Creator Incubator and Accelerator Cohort — an accelerator program powered by Jaylen Brown’s Boston XChange and Lauren and Jrue Holiday’s JLH Fund.

Thousands of Boston-based innovators applied for the program, and yet just 10 were admitted. The cohort, according to its website, “empowers underinvested creators in Boston with the tools, capital and community needed to thrive.”

And while Anawan Studios received $100,000 in unrestricted grant funding as a part of the program, founder Rui Lopes said the non-financial benefits of the cohort have been just as impactful.

“At this level, $100,000 makes a huge difference,” he said. “The biggest thing we took out of this cohort was the education. They were trying to help us redevelop our minds as entrepreneurs.”

Alongside the nine other selected entrepeneaurs, Lopes spent time at MIT and at Harvard Business School, “reframing” his thinking to become more entrepeneureal. Lopes, who studied fine arts at Lesley University, said he previously “never considered [himself] a businessperson.”

Another beneficial piece of the cohort? The opportunity to screen some of Anawan’s films at the MFA.

Lauren Holiday, the United States Women’s National Team legend with a couple Olympic golds and a World Cup in her trophy cabinet, had already formed connections with the MFA by the time she began working with Anawan. Next thing he knew, Lopes was at a dinner with some of the “big wigs” at the museum.

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What films are on the docket?

One thing led to another, and now, on Saturday, Sept. 13, Anawan Studios will screen five short films at the MFA. The event will take place from 2:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. There will be a discussion panel to follow the screening.

“It’s not your typical Q&A,” Lopes said. “We’re going to be having conversations about the current state of the film industry in Massachusetts, and where we’re all collectively trying to take it.”

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These 5 Anawan films will be screened at MFA

As for what’s on the screening docket, the five films that Lopes curated will showcase the genre-bending capabilities of Anawan as a production studio:

• A five-minute snippet from “Vindicta,” a feature-length thriller

• “Dream Job,” a 5-minute dark comedy

• “Bridged Together,” a 16-minute family film

• “Billy Somethin,” a 16-minute boxing film that blends together crime, action and thriller aspects

• “Polarity,” a 10-minute comedy

“The reason why we’re screening those films specifically is to showcase the range in genres that we can tackle,” he said. “We want to be able to showcase our capabilities and also showcase that we can be a production partner.”

While the creative piece of the business is what inspires Lopes, he also realizes he needs to keep the lights on in the company’s downtown Brockton studio.

“You’re not going to have a company if you’re not self-sustainable,” he said. “We have to be thinking about the future. We can’t be so much stuck on the past and how films have always been done.”

How to get tickets

You can purchase tickets for the upcoming MFA screening here. The screenings will take place in Harry and Hildred Remis Auditorium (Auditorium 161). The museum is located at 465 Huntington Ave. in Boston.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: How sports legend helped Brockton’s Anawan Studios screen films at MFA