Filmmaker Arielle Loren is working an interesting mini-doc that addresses straight women dating bisexual men. These are not DL brothers but men who clearly state that they date both men and women. After an experience with just such a man, Loren decided to explore the subject with other straight women and the “The Bi-deology Project” was born.
The DC Black Pride 2010 Film Festival is a celebration of LGBTQ filmmakers and their unique cinematic perspective. We are seeking short films, no longer than 15 minutes, that will be screened at the festival on Saturday, May 29, 2010. We welcome documentaries, animation, and experimental work.
Submission Guidelines
*Include two copies of your short on DVD, labeled with the following information: (1) title, (2) running time and (3) contact information (including name, email address and phone number). DVDs must be submitted in 5 1/4" by 7 1/2" plastic safe cases – the industry standard push-button hub, dark plastic cases (like commercial DVDs, not CDs). Please do not send submissions in fiber-filled envelopes, as the dust damages DVDs and DVD players.
*A synopsis along with writer, director and producer credits
*Do not send the master tape. We are not responsible for any lost or damaged master tape.
*Please note that the DVD copies you submit will not be returned.
*To receive acknowledgment of receipt of your entry, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope or postcard with your Submissions.
Send to: DC Black Pride 2010 P.O. Box 77071 Washington, DC 20013
For more information contact Michelle at dcfilmmaker@gmail.com
Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc. (BLGPD),a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, strives to increase awareness of and pride in the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender in the African American community as well as support organizations that focus on health disparities, education, youth and families.
I’m a huge fan of the director Michael Moore. His work is provocative (in a good way), loud (so you can’t ignore it) and thoughtful (although his critics accuse him of being slapdash).
From Roger and Me to Sicko, I have always experienced his documentaries as a call to arms. But after watching his latest offering, Capitalism: A Love Story, I feel hopeless. Stumped. Defeated. Not because he didn’t provide a compelling narrative, Moore says he’s been trying to bring “the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans” to our attention for the last twenty-years, but because he basically proved that the 99% of the American population has no chance up against the 1%.
The level of corporate greed on display in the film is mind blowing. It starts out with a “leaked” memo from Citigroup to its stakeholders (and no I’m not talking about us the consumer) lamenting the current state of our democracy.
You see, for all our imperfections, these United States still affords every adult one vote. That one vote, when counted, can equal up to a tremendous sea change (i.e. President Barack Hussein Obama) and that is what the one-percenters are concerned about. What if the 99% wise up and start voting in a way that could really mess up their good thing? And they have a good thing.
One percent of the population in the U.S. holds more assets, monies and power than the rest of the population - combined. The folks over at Citigroup were concerned that we are no longer happy to believe the tired trope that if you work really hard (or if you want to do it easy and get a bunch of credit cards) you too can have access to the “good life.” But after the financial free fall of 2008, Wall Street feared that we had caught on to their tricks and was about to derail their mission of economic world domination.
In his films I’m used to Moore presenting a glaring pile of bullshit behavior by some wrongdoer, and then close behind, a way to dismantle the machine is presented. But Capitalism is not structured that way. It is like a never-ending pile-up on a really long stretch of California freeway. One after another he pulls out examples of how Wall Street is screwing us, and they’ve long given up the courtesy of asking or using KY.
I think the most atrocious example is the story of a wife, who upon the death of her husband, a longtime employee of Walmart, finds out that they have taken out a secret life insurance policy on him. A paperwork snafu, on the part of the insurance company, is what inadvertently alerts her of the 1.5 million dollar payout that his employer will receive, of which; she will not see one thin dime.
And to prove that this is not just the case of a corporation covering their losses on a high end manager; Moore shows us a grieving husband who lost his wife, a cake decorator in the Walmart bakery, to an asthma attack and discovered that the company collected approximately $81,000.00 as a result of the life insurance policy they carried on her. Another spouse who had no idea about the policy or why Walmart didn’t need their permission to get one. And it seems like Moore couldn’t find anyone who could provide a satisfactory answer either. Of course, Walmart was mum on their practice (which is also carried out by at least 10 other corporations) and the consumer rights lawyer, who has been investigating this trend for the last few years, brought in to talk to Moore, couldn’t figure it out either and had only been able to dig up two very disturbing elements of the practice.
Two: Collecting on these policies is built into the corporation’s projected profit sheets, with the expectation that at least 16% of the workforce will kick the bucket every year.
All this money is tax-free and amounts to billions of dollars each year.
As I watched the distressed husband and his children talk about their loss and the hospital bills and funeral cost that they were left with, I wondered what could we really do to bring down all these greedy monsters? Americans are always game for a David and Goliath showdown, but this heartless behavior seems like it’s in a world all to itself.
It seems that every part of the machine is greased with plenty of money, not even our elected officials seem immune from contamination, and those one-percenters have no intention of letting go of a single penny. And it’s not like they are off somewhere printing this money, they are squeezing it out of everyday folks with sky-high credit card fees (trust that they will find a way to get around the most recent reforms) and crippling the financial system with the fraudulent practice of credit default swaps (basically betting against itself with your money).
During a recent interview on NPR, Moore said, “We are in a place in history that we make money off of money. No longer are the best and the brightest bringing their innovations to the marketplace in a way that will better society” (and make money). And no, he is not talking about the guy who brought us the Snuggie. Please stop making him a millionaire!
FASCINATING FACT: Dr. Jonas Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine, gave it away for no financial compensation and never patented his discovery. A discovery that everyone agrees changed the history of public of health in 1955 and could have been easily monetized. When asked why he didn’t go for the duckets (clearly my wording), Salk said he couldn’t imagine putting a price on something so important, that so many people needed.
It seems there are very few 21st century Salks (just think about all the money being made on HIV medication) and everyone is out to make a dollar on the backs of whomever. The powers that be are only interested in keeping the masses numb, inactive or at least addicted to the idea of excess. Yes, you do need three flat screen televisions in your two-bedroom apartment. Your kids do need $200.00 sneakers on their feet when you can barely keep the lights on. Your cupboards should be stocked with more processed food than you could eat in a lifetime. More! More! More!
As the credits rolled over Moore stringing crime scene tape around the gleaming and formidable-looking New York Stock Exchange, declaring he was executing a citizen’s arrest, I wondered if Americans, even with unemployment at an all-time high, were aware enough to want to get off the corporate teat? Were they willing to give up the flimsy notion of prosperity? Anything that the bank can come and repossess is not truly yours.
Over the last year, I had already started downsizing my own life. No more duplicates of unnecessary shit. No more buying because it was put in front of me. No more stockpiling just so I can say I have. But how many people would have to do that to really get corporate America’s attention? Was it realistic to have an expectation of change within something that was so flushed with cash and gross with power?
Or did Mike Judge’s movie Idiocracy (that I wish had been better because it had so many truths running through it) have it right? Keep us pumped up on violent reality shows, Carl’s Jr. and Mountain Dew and we won’t even notice the clusterfuck that is happening right under our noses.
Michelle Sewell is a screenwriter and she is contemplating giving up everything, moving out into the desert of New Mexico and making a living as a “magical Negro.”
Deborah (and her set designer Paul Kelm) had transformed the small auxiliary stage into the Maine all-girls summer camp that is the setting for the unsettling play. For over 90 minutes, an intriguing and diverse cast of no less than thirteen women actors (some as young as eight-years-old), held the audience in rapt attention. As they expertly wove the delicate tale of discovery, pain and betrayal, in the world of tenuous summertime sisterhood, you knew you were seeing something unusual. Not just Gage’s well-written script, but all those women on one stage.
Since 1999, the founder and artistic director of Venus Theatre has been on a mission to create as many opportunities for audiences to see complex and provocative stories told by and performed by women. Deborah’s first indication of the power of theater in women’s lives was during her membership in an interactive improv female troupe, Venus Envy, which provided programming for women in domestic violence shelters. Through broken teeth and blackened eyes, the women embraced the empowering and healing skits and activities that gave them some of their dignity and voices back.
During this period, Deborah was also seeing a “dumbing down” of the already limited roles for women in theatre and she could no longer abide by the worsening opportunities for an entire generation of female actors. In response she created Venus Theatre. Within a year she had incorporated and was now Washington, DC’s only non-profit feminist theatre. Almost immediately she started requesting work from women playwrights, submissions now number in the hundreds, and the wRighting Women Reading Series was born. The series allowed Deborah to cast talented actors in challenging and important roles and introduce fresh stories to hungry audiences. Deborah has noticed that there are female actors that shy away from auditioning for roles at Venus. When asked why she thinks this is, she is frank in her response. “I think actors who work primarily in mainstream theater, who often contend with paper thin characters and productions, find the material, that Venus is known to produce, intimidating. We want to show life from multiple angles and that means seeing actors on stage who depict stories that are complex, heady and challenging. So, yes, you might see two women kissing.”
Deborah reflects on one of her own earlier challenges when mounting these productions. “For the first seven years of the company, every time we launched a new show or reading, I had to rent a space.” Over the years, Deborah has set up her feminist caravan in every available theater space in Washington, DC (as well NYC , Pennsylvania, and Baltimore). In 2007, she decided it was time to create a permanent home for her mercurial company. Venus Theatre The Play Shack is now located at 21 C Street in Laurel, Maryland. The convenient location makes it accessible to theater lovers coming from DC, Annapolis and Baltimore. “Once we moved into our own black box, I was surprised to discover how much stress I had been feeling having to bounce around D.C., finding venues to do our plays. Now I get to park right in front of my own theatre,” an amused Deborah shared.
Deborah is the first to admit that it takes a great deal of sacrifice to do what she has done. It helps that her partner of 21-years, musician Alan Scott, has been unwavering in his support of her work. He has encouraged her to take more risks and make Venus her chief focus in her artist’s life. She hasn’t had a “day job” in years. She is immensely grateful, that on a daily basis, she has the opportunity to embrace her desire to create a space for women. But running a theatre company doesn’t mean that she gets to churn out her own plays in any regular frequency. After ten years of producing and directing Deborah has had to put her own writing and performing to the side at times. But this year, she will direct the second play of the Venus season, In the Goldfish Bowl, which focuses on four women on Texas death row. She will also debut and perform in her own one-act play, Tuesday, at the Capital Fringe Festival, later this summer. The play centers on a hotline volunteer that is faced with the truth of her own crumbling life as she tries to support the women who call the hotline. Lee Mikeska Gardner, who Deborah is eternally grateful for her talent and her demand that she stretch herself in this new work, directs Tuesday.
When asked what is her advice for women who want to follow their dreams, Deborah sighs. “Don’t try to do this alone. You don’t have to isolate yourself. As women we are not always in a team environment when we are younger. We are pitted against each other to be the prettiest, smartest, or the center of attention, so we don’t always recognize each other as valuable supports.” Deborah admits she has been guilty of trying to go it alone for a long time. Now as she reflects on this decade milestone, she is happy that she is embracing the idea of collaboration and learning what kind of support is out there for her. “Reach out and ask for help. It is much easier than we think. I think the Internet has become for women artists what the golf course is for men. It cuts down the isolation and opens up a community we might not have access to in any other way.”
What’s next for Venus Theatre? More plays that set flight to the voices of women. “I was born to do this. This is where I feel like I’m in my vein of gold,” Deborah says, as she prepares to get back to work.
On March 11, 2010, Venus Theatre will kick off its 10th season with the world premiere of Zelda at the Oasis, written by P.H. Lin and directed by Lynn Sharp Spears. The play takes a fictional look at the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, wife of the noted American novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wants nothing better than to be recognized as an artist in her own right. Two things stand in her way: an inherited mental instability, and an overbearing husband. The play runs until April 4, 2010. For more information on tickets click here.
Michelle Sewell is a screenwriter who was horribly miscast as the “wicked witch” in her sixth grade Halloween play, when she really wanted to be the “cute alien,” and has been plotting her revenge ever since.
You know how you feel when you find a ten-dollar bill in a winter coat that you forgot about? Well, the eight women of The Saartjie Project (pronounced Sar-key) elicited that same warm smile of remembering in me as they wove a touching, powerful telling of the story of Saartjie (Sara) Baartman, the woman dubbed the “Hottentot Venus.”
Baartman, who left South Africa in 1810 when she was 20-years-old, found herself at the center of a heartbreaking freak show, that would make her all the rage in London and the icon of black female sexuality well into the 20th century.
Through beautiful and sassy monologues, dance and poetry Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty attempts to restore Baartman’s dignity and humanity by insisting that we are her “reincarnated” and as a result can change how people see and treat black women. That by taking up space, telling our truth and disengaging from the machine that only sees us as body parts, we get to redirect the harsh glare and the seldom flattering fascination with the black female form.
The eclectic cast of women, representing various body types and skin tones, moves effortlessly from one vignette to another, with Margaux Deloitte-Bennett’s rich voice providing the sensual soundtrack throughout. From the "Busted Baby Pageant" to the childhood taunts of "if you're black stay back," the audience is taken on a journey that is both provocative and searing in how close it cuts to the bone of truth for the modern day woman, regardless of race.
The brainchild of Jessica T. Solomon, playwright and cultural creative, The Saartjie Project has been on tour for two years. “It was supposed to be a one night performance, but then we started to receive invitations to perform it all over the country,” an amused Jessica shared with the audience during the talk-back portion after the performance.
This was the final performance of Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty and as the cast took their final bow on The Corner Store stage, you wish it weren’t.
The collective’s next project will be based on Nina Simone’s “Four Women.” The new show, schedule to debut fall 2010, will look at the four archetypes of womanhood.
I had the good fortune of running into out Black filmmaker Debra Wilson while hanging out in the lobby of the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) and she was gracious enough to give a spontaneous interview.
A California native, currently in the Oakland area, Debra has been very deliberate about how she uses her gift as filmmaker. She feels it is her mission to tell the stories of the various communities she belongs to and communities that are consistently ignored. Debra is quite aware of the power of film and how it often educates audiences who might never come in contact with provocative topics in any other way.
Debra’s own curiosity also helps determine what stories she will develop. After being asked to leave a break out session for “butch-identified lesbians” (because she was not one) while attending the 2001 Zuna Institute National Black Lesbian Conference, she became determined to shine a light into this mysterious world. Over two years, paying for the project out of her pocket, she developed the documentary film Butch Mystique and went on to win the Showtime Black Filmmaker Showcase, where the film first aired.
The documentary follows six butch-identified African-American lesbians in the San Francisco area. Through interviews, issues of power, lifestyle, masculine/feminine energies, outward appearance, and identity are examined.
The Showtime win afforded Debra a $30,000 budget and the opportunity to develop another project that would also air on the premium cable channel. In 2006, Jumpin’ the Broom: The New Covenant made its debut. The documentary focuses on committed same-sex relationships among Black lesbian and gay couples, who build families and lives in the face of opposition to “gay marriage” in the Black community. The term “jumpin’ the broom” is a custom from the days of slavery. During this period, black couples weren’t allowed to legally marry and jumping over a broom was a symbolic gesture to celebrate their love and commitment to each other. Debra’s film suggests that modern day same-sex couples are placed in the same situation of creating their own rituals and ceremonies to legitimize their loving relationships.
At the time the film was released only one state in the U.S., Massachusetts, recognized same-sex marriages. Two years later, the LGBT community in California was in a bitter battle against supporters of Proposition 8, which would overturn the courts decision to mandate marriage for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation. On November 4, 2008, Prop 8 was passed and the right to marry was taken from same-sex couples (who were not married before November 4th). Debra voiced her disappointment that her film was not used to educate the Black community during that campaign. She says she made the film to be accessible to the straight community and hopes to still get it out to its intended audience.
Debra’s most recent project, where she serves as a producer, is Mississippi Damned, a feature film written and directed by Tina Mabry. The true story focuses on a young girl growing up in Mississippi and battling family demons to carve out her own life.
With 15 years of experience in the film industry, Debra looks forward to developing more documentaries as well as webisodes and television projects. She loves what she does and recommends that up-and-coming filmmakers tell stories that they are passionate about and can’t wait to tell. “That passion will buffer you from those who tell you your story is not worth telling,” she counsels. And as far as Debra is concerned, she will never stop telling our stories.
Michelle Sewell is a freelance writer who makes it a habit of hanging out in lobbies.
If you have to travel three-thousand-miles for real poetry, then DC is the place to get your fill. The west coast needs to take some notes. Yes, I knows them some fightin' words...lol. Keeping my good parking karma going in snowy DC, I headed over to Chief Ike's Mambo Room to check out the collaborative project Black on My Back: The Poetic Intersection of the Black Experience. The three poets headlining the show were Gayle Danley, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Twain Dooley.
The show, which the threesome (insert 9th grade giggle here) has been performing for a wide ranging audience in prisons, coffee houses and schools, is a mash up of their original work and the work of celebrated poets such as Quincy Troupe, Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes.
The performers did the impressive work of blending the various pieces together seamlessly. The 60 minute show was eclectic, funny and at times sentimental. Sonya Renee, who is an HBO Def Poet and National SLAM Champion, shared that they decided to collaborate on the showcase to educate audiences on how effortlessly page and stage poetry can share the same space and be entertaining. The supportive audience seemed happy to prove their theory correct. Check out the video below for the highlights.
Michelle Sewell is a screenwriter that travels for good poetry and has extra parking Karma for sale.
The winter Meg Federico’s 81-year-old mother, Addie, fell and hit her head on the sidewalk, while vacationing in Florida, they suddenly found themselves cast in a geriatric version of the movie Freaky Friday. Seemingly overnight, they swap roles in the parent/child dynamic and every day, for the next three years, is a series of unexpected and unbelievable adventures. Federico’s bittersweet and humorous memoir, Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother, is in many ways an instructive step-by-step narrative on the Herculean task of taking care of an aging parent, while trying to live your own life.
If the natural cycle of life plays itself out as intended we will outlive our parents; and in doing so we might also be placed in the position of caring for them in their final years. Federico bravely writes about her imperfect attempt to do just that and the lessons learned along the way.
The story is told in a series of compelling flashbacks, starting with the author’s father dying on her wedding day. If there was ever an example of foreshadowing you couldn’t get a better one than that. It is also clear early on that Meg and Addie have a strained relationship, a fact that will become critical as Meg becomes one of the central people in charge of her mother’s care.
Once Federico and her siblings make the decision not to place their frail mother in a nursing home (prompted by Addie’s earlier escape, aided and abetted by her Alzheimer's-addled, 83-year-old second husband) they realize how ill-equipped they are to take care of their strong-willed and sometimes alcoholic mother. But determined to give her the best care possible they call in a team of in-home “experts” that range from tremendously caring to outright crooks.
As Addie and her sex-crazed husband, Walter, become more like petulant teenagers, the author the frazzled parent, and the incidents stack up at an outlandish (sometimes outright life threatening) rate the reader can’t help but wonder why they continue at this impossible circus, with all its loony characters. No one would judge them if they called it quits.
In the midst of the chaos of bedpans, missing jewelry, and sex-toys, Federico must also come to terms with the uneven and sometimes-distant relationship she has had with her diva mother. As the youngest of five children, Federico always felt that her mother saw her as an inconvenience that never met her expectations. Faced with these long held resentments, now butted up against her new power and responsibility, she somehow resists the temptation to “pay her mother back.” In fact, as Addie decompensates, and her own family life starts to show the strain of her routine absence, Federico renews her commitment to maintaining her mother’s dignity and making room for her to have a say so in her care, even when it was inconvenient or impractical to do so.
Just as the author deftly uses humor as a way to soften some of the more difficult issues caretakers face (i.e. changing diapers, dementia, and slowly losing the person who once took care of you), she is also straightforward in the reality that ultimately, unlike parents taking care of children, there is no future or bettering the situation and what frees you from this obligation is death.
Their last days together are both tender and a celebration of her mother’s long and determined life. And although Federico knows that death is how this obligation will end, it doesn’t make it any easier when her mother takes her final breath while sleeping in her arms.
Welcome to the Departure Lounge is a poignant testament to how human we all are, including our parents.
Michelle Sewell, founder of GirlChild Press, has recently been hired to write a memoir involving death, teen pregnancy, and raising kids in the Valley. She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA.
My writer friend, Kellie, and I are riding down Sunset Blvd when she asks me if I think the movie Avatar is racist. I have to tell her I’m one of the few people who hasn’t seen it. Well she is dying to talk to someone about “all the racist images” and demands that I put it at the top of my viewing list.
Later that weekend, I made my way over to the multiplex, snuck in some goodies from 7-Eleven (hey, I’m a struggling artist), and settled down to see the much-hyped, 3D spectacle.
If you have somehow found a way not to be sucked in by the blockbuster Avatar hype, here is the basic plot: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.
I got to give it to writer/director James Cameron, he put everything he had in this movie (not necessarily good storytelling, but you can’t hit every ball out of the park). Avatar is a perfect example of a filmmaker not letting go of an idea and finding the right time to execute it.
Before I answer Kellie’s provocative question, here are the things I can easily answer about Avatar.
1. Avatar is the perfect 3D movie to see if you have never seen one before. This was my first. 2. Avatar is boring --according to the two guys who started to snore twenty minutes in. One of them eventually left. 3. Avatar takes movie making to the next level. Once again, Cameron has set the bar for big and huge and spectacular. 4. Avatar is visually beautiful. Cameron gives us all the bells and whistles. 5. Avatar has ridiculously shitty dialogue. Cameron, I know you are heralded as the tricked out technology director, but would it kill you to take a script writing workshop?
Now back to Kellie’s question: Is the movie Avatar racist?
I suspect if you feel your racism alarms going off it’s because Cameron intends to ring it. In many ways Avatar is a textbook example of how indigenous people and their communities are taken over and destroyed. The colonist find something valuable that the locals are sitting on and they try every trick in the book to get them to give it up. If not by offering cheap trinkets, then by good old- fashion force (and smallpox- infested blankets).
In his heavy handed way the director means to be clear that this is a story of “us” and “them” In the “us” column is Giovanni Ribisi’s character, Parker Selfridge, whose disdain and impatience for the “monkeys” of Pandora grows by leaps and bounds as the story progresses. He makes Bill O’Reilly look like a super liberal in comparison. And a story of colonist gone wild would not be complete without a benevolent soul, Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine, who only wants to learn from the Nav’is (and if time allows collect some samples).
The “them” come in the form of the fourteen-feet tall, bright blue Nav’is. They are a not so subtle mash up of all the people who have ever had their land and culture stolen and left out on the margins. With their spears, flying Pterodactyl and spiritual connection to their ancestors, they are a hint of Aborigines, Native Americans, Zulu Nation, and magical.
Thrown in the middle of this cultural stand off is our reluctant hero, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, who eventually finds himself “going native.” During the montage where Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri teaches JakeSully the way of the Nav’is, I found myself thinking of the 1995 Walt Disney animated film Pocahontas. So, my mother is right again; there is nothing new under sun.
For all the bells and whistles, Avatar, at least in part, is a story that has been told before, in fact, many times. Here the story is being played out on the gaseous planet Pandora (and please, don’t wreck your brain on why he calls the planet that). It is a retelling of how people, who believe they have more right to something, will go about getting it, regardless of the cost – often to the indigenous people.
So, is Avatar racist? No. Just a flimsy, but visually spectacular allegory older than time.
Screenwriter Michelle Sewell wonders if it would be wrong to sneak a turkey leg into the movies next time?
You have never experienced the concept of “hurry up and wait” until you’ve been hired by the federal government to write and produce an educational script on parenting.
May 2007, I was brought on board by my friend and director Paul Grant (Tangy’sSong) to write a short script that would be developed into an educational video promoting the concept of “anticipatory parenting within the mother/daughter dynamic.” A mouthful indeed, and according to the feds - an issue that needed to be addressed. The media company overseeing the project wanted a writer that could develop a serviceable script and had experience with the population that was to be the subject of the video. According to Paul, I fit the bill perfectly. I had a masters in social work (with a lot of experience working with girls and their families) and I had just been accepted to a prestigious Los Angeles- based screenwriting fellowship. So basically, a match made in heaven. And to top it all off, the agency that was paying for the project had run several focus groups, made up of the identified population of mothers and daughters, and as a result generated a meaty report that I could use to build a story and cherry-pick dialogue from. Easy as pie, right?
The senior manager and her staff from the media company were crazy cool. They provided clear directions around what needed to show up in the script (five scenarios highlighting problem behaviors and solutions) and then left me the hell alone to write. Over the course of two days I churned out a 14-page script. Afterward, Paul and I met with the senior media manager and her team over coffee and tweaked it. It was then passed off to the agency that commissioned the script and everyone went back to their regular programming. About a month later I was notified that we would be meeting with the agency to receive notes and feedback. At this point I had been in a couple script note meetings, while working on a short with BET, so I was not overly concerned. That was until I found myself sitting at a large conference table surrounded by folks that didn’t seem too happy with my handy work. Based on the feedback I was getting you would have thought I had turned in the first draft of “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.” Paul and I kept looking at each other like WTF? They had issues with the “language”: a character said “hell”. They had issues with the “dialect”: a character dropped a couple “gs.” They had issues with the “violence”: the mother grabbed her daughter by the arm. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer, and with a sweet smile, I asked, “Have you guys read the focus group report?” They nodded yes. Then they knew that the mothers were using harsher language than “hell” and in their world jacking up your kid was as natural as breathing. As I understood it, my job was to show both the inappropriate and appropriate techniques regarding parenting and that focus group report was just bursting with inappropriate. So as far as I was concerned: mission accomplished. But by the end of the two hour meeting, my marching orders were clear: water down my coarse, illiterate and heinously violent opus.
I turned in the revised draft the day before I left for my fellowship (where I would be told I was a frickin’ genius and needed to move to L.A. immediately). Every few months I would check in with Paul regarding the project, but it seemed it was stuck in some sort of special project purgatory. A couple times during 2008, I was asked to rewrite various sections of the script, but basically there was no indication that it would ever make it into production. So eventually I stopped asking about it all together.
Fast-forward two years. I am now living in L.A. and planning a visit to the east coast to see family and friends. The day I land in DC, I get a call from Paul who laughs as he reports that the project has finally gotten the green light and he was entering into a four-day shoot during the exact week I’m home. We both laughed like hyenas and I promised that wild horses couldn’t keep me from coming by his set.
As I drove up on the little blue town house, tucked away in a suburban cul-de- sac, that was to serve as the family home, I suddenly remembered why I like being a screenwriter. No matter how frustrating or exhausting the process, there is no feeling like hearing actors breath life into the words that you had slaved over.
It was really fun spending an afternoon with Paul as he took our little script to the next level. The actors were great and his crew very skilled. Paul runs a very calm and respectful set so there is no drama to report. He did let me know that the original focus group mothers reviewed the “watered down” script and they thought the “inappropriate behaviors” were too weak and they would have done worse. I was vindicated!
I wish I could report that the DVD is now in circulation and being used by parenting groups across the land, but no such luck. The last word is that the rough cut is being “reviewed.” I guess back to purgatory it goes.
No one rushes off to the west coast with the dreams of a theatre career. Theatre is the absolute redheaded stepchild in this TV and film town. For those theatre nuts living in L.A., you have to really search out good shows if you are into live performances. So I was very curious when my east coast friend, Suzette, suggested a “must see” show at the Santa Monica Playhouse.
"Jamaica, Farewell" is a one-woman play based on Debra Ehrhardt’s true story of life in Jamaica and her unorthodox journey to America. Ehrhardt, an actor and writer, created the show when she found her acting career stalled and she knew she had a story to tell.
I was immediately fascinated with this memoir -in front of floodlights- because I, too, am from the “blue emerald of the Caribbean,” but was whisked away to America before I outgrew the place like clearly Debra had.
The play opens on a seven-year-old, Yankee Doodle Dandy-loving Debbie at her third grade talent show. She loves everything American and wants everyone to know it. She can’t quite explain her fascination with the country, with malls “as big as Jamaica,” but she knows she must get there.
By the time Debbie graduates from high school, she is hell-bent on securing a visa and making it off the island by hook or by crook. But stuck in a dead-end job and surrounded by a country being consumed by violence and political upheaval, she is not sure how she is going to fulfill her lifelong dream of starting over in the land of "amber waves of grain." Then a chance encounter with a “handsome and well-connected American” puts her hastily thrown together plans in motion and Debbie using every survival instinct to make it through a night she would never forget.
During a high energy and bittersweet 90 minutes, Ehrhardt paraded before us an impressive roster of characters that populates this once-in-a-life adventure. A perpetually drunk father, a pious mother, a ganja smokin’ 90-year-old, and a big butt Brothel owner are just a few of the folks woven effortlessly through a tale of hope, wit, and amazing luck.
Jamaica, Farewell, is energetic and authentically funny. Apart from bring an exceptional storyteller, Ehrhardt’s timing is impeccable and performance fearless. She wrings every ounce of suspense out of her off-the-wall tale and leaves her audience absolutely exhausted (and grateful) by the time she gets on that plane. Her use of her lithe physical form rivals any multi-million-dollar movie special effects and with it she delivers a fine study on perseverance, destiny, and finding where you truly belong.
Jamaica, Farewell enjoyed a successful Off Broadway run and has toured the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the United Kingdom. The show will appear next at the Orlando Repertory Theatre. Ms. Ehrhardt, a member of the Writer’s Guild of America, is currently adapting the show for the big screen.
Ex-UK TV director Francis Megahy directed Jamaica, Farewell. Sound design was provided by composer (and Ehrhardt’s son) Danny Ehrhardt.
I haven’t rushed out to see a Denzel Washington movie since “Malcolm X.” And after splashing my way through a rare Southern California rainstorm, I’m feeling like I could have stayed at home!
"Book of Eli" opens on a post-apocalyptic world where a war has torn a hole in the sky and the sun has burned everything and everyone. Those who survived live in a world of scarcity and violence. Our reluctant hero, Eli, has been on a 30-year journey to bring the only surviving copy of the King James Bible to a safe harbor in the “west.”
On the surface a good plot, but the execution is disappointing. Which is too bad because the first five minutes of the film screams potential. The tone, and what is at stake, is immediately apparent, and Denzel does “alone” well. His is more believable and accessible than Will Smith’s glossy, tricked out version in "I Am Legend"
It is quickly established that Eli is resourceful, spiritual, and apparently invincible. His body might be riddled with scars, but he is still standing and walking toward his destiny. He is a man who carries everything he owns in a backpack and has no problem leaving things behind, well, except for his iPod, and of course the holy grail that he has been protecting for three decades.
Because most film-goers have seen at least one post-apocalyptic story the filmmakers could have done more to establish what is so unique about theirs. They touch on some items: you want to stay away from the people with the “shakes” (which doesn't pay off in any real way) and Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell” is now considered classic listening music (definitely got a giggle from the audience). But for the most part there are no surprises. In fact, there is little that is memorable about this film. In fairness, Washington does a yeoman's job considering the story is so paper-thin. It is basically Eli shuffling, under green-gray skies, through the desert (New Mexico serves as the burned out world) and occasionally cutting off rapist, murderers and sun-goggled bandits random body parts.
Self-sufficient Eli’s mission is momentarily endangered when he walks into a town run by Gary Oldman’s “Carnegie”. Like our protagonist, Carnegie is from a time before the wars. He can read, which makes him powerful, and he also knows where the treasured water source is and of course he is not telling. Carnegie is also on a mission and is using every resource at his disposal to achieve it. I wont be giving away anything by saying he wants the Bible that Eli is carrying.
I’ve enjoyed Oldman’s performances in the past, but here he is just a caricature. I almost expected him to start twirling his “villain” mustache (which he didn’t have). The two female leads, Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beals, are basically props that get manhandled and yelled at for most of the movie. By the end of the film I can’t believe anyone is invested in Kunis’ “Solara” as a character or that she has what it takes to carry on Eli’s mission. There is simply no depth to these characters. No performance pops off the screen and demands that you watch. Many of their motivations appear to be internal and critical decisions (Beals sending her only daughter off with the machete wielding Eli) are made off screen, robbing the audience of the opportunity to care about anyone.
The Hughes Brothers,Albert and Allen, (Menace to Society, Dead Presidents) helm this picture. In what appears an attempt to take our attention away from the weak plot, they invest most of their energies into staging bloody fight scenes, massive explosions, and intricate camera work. Unfortunately, there is not enough in their bag of tricks to get our hearts pumping or save the movie from a less than impressive ending. The reveal is one that comes with little fanfare and left me feeling indifferent regarding the survival of mankind.
Others who have seen this film say that it left them thinking about how power and religion would play out in a society forced to start over. I think the people who were able to grasp that from this film were already inclined to see the connection. I offer that the filmmakers depended on a good number of their audience members already holding the belief that a bible could be the bedrock in restarting a society, and did none of the heavy lifting required in weaving a compelling tale.
Book of Eli was written by first-time screenwriter Gary Whitta (former PC Gamer editor) and produced by Washington. The film is rated R.
If you think the concept of having a soulmate is crap or that “attracting” the perfect person into your life is double crap, then you should probably stop reading here. But if you have been romantically attached to a long list of losers or every weekend you find yourself reluctantly sitting on your couch with only the company of a bag of Doritos — then read on.
Arielle Ford’s The Soulmate Secret: Manifest the Love of Your Life with the Law of Attraction just might be the antidote to your partner-less life that you’ve been looking for.
I bumped into this little book of love and joy while searching the new arrival stacks at my local library. I am personally not in the market for a new mate, but Ford’s sunny and hopeful writing style compelled me to check this little puppy out and I have not been able to put it down.
Let me be clear that The Soulmate Secret isn’t bringing us any late breaking information that we have not heard before. What makes this 207 page quick read so compelling is its accessibility. Ford saves you from chapters of psycho-babble, that normally makes you feel like who would want to date you any way, and jumps right into how to find that special person. The book takes you through a quick soulmate IQ test: Do you believe there is a soul mate out there for you? Are there past lovers who still have their energetic hooks in you — or are yours in them? Are you psychologically ready to receive your soul mate? These are just a few of the probing questions put to you on page one. If you answer “no” to any of the nine questions, Ford lets you know right off the bat that you and the current state of mind is the barrier that is stopping your soul mate from showing up. If you must know I answered “no” to half the damn questions.
But don’t fear; she has a host of activities and testimonies to get you into relationship shape. In many ways the book ask that you accept full responsibility for all the sub-par mates that have been showing up in your life. When you look back on your failed relationships you knew they were trouble or broke or alcoholics or needy or crazy from the very start, but you let them in anyway. From the start they couldn’t give you what you needed and you certainly could not impact change in their chaotic lives, so you were forced to ride it out until the relationship died some horrible, often messy, death. Then you were back on that couch, with your bag of Doritos, feeling like a failure and wondering why you are so unlucky in love.
To combat these unintentional relationships, Ford suggests that you make an exhaustive list of the attributes you want in a partner. I know it sounds super easy but try it. After you scribble down the first five or six characteristics a lot of folks find themselves struggling to come up with the recommended minimum 25 items. Partly, the exercise is about showing you you are not necessarily connected to what you want in a partner. This disconnect is why you accept anything that shows up. Once you get past the cute, nice, good in bed and not allergic to the cat, you discover there is a lot of things you hate about your new love. And there you are, back on the relationship roller coaster. The author suggests you should commit about 30 minutes to making this list. Making your soul mate list is just the start to the process that leads you through a lot of purging and reflection in your life. When it comes to your physical space, throw away those sheets that are still around from two relationships ago. They are probably carrying around some bad love juju. Make a vision board of what you want your soul mate to look like and what you would like to do with them and hang it in your bedroom. Set up an altar to remind you that you “purposely” trying to attract your true love. When it comes to you, get your butt into therapy or some form of counseling. Take inventory of your life. There is a reason that you keep attracting the wrong person. Find out why, and then stop doing it.
My favorite part of the book is the couple testimonies sprinkled throughout. Ford says that all the couples highlighted took the steps recommended in the book and found their true love. We got people meeting on planes, in gyms, in snowstorms, at seminars, and in parking lots. One guy reports that he woke up one morning, with a random phone number running through his head, and when he called it it was a woman living 50 miles away that he had never heard of. After he told her how he came to call her, and she did not hang up on him, they met for coffee and have been together ever since. Stop rolling your eyes, especially if you are still sitting on that couch covered in Doritos dust.
If I had any criticism of the book are Ford’s “Feelingizations.” These are meant to be meditation that you can do when you want to connect to the idea of attracting your soul mate. I personally could not get through them, but maybe you will have better luck. There is also a website that provides a guided audio of these feelingizations that could make the meditation a little easier.
All in all, I think this book is perfect for those who are ready to take a real hard look at their romantic life and are serious about getting into an intentional and healthy long-term relationship. Happy manifesting!
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