Showcase | Week of Nov 1 - 7
50+ films, panels, workshops & special events. $300 savings.
River Queen: Winter's End
Producers: Grace Gibson, Kai Bussant, Lynn Whitfield, David Black and Prosper Jones
Producer/Director/Writer: Grace Gibson
16:30 min., experimental
RIVER QUEEN: Winter's End is the first leg of a musical voyage through the waters of life. Gibson’s directorial and artistic debut, the beginning of her study and reintroduction of the modern rock-opera, where the pairing of libretto and symbolic imagery rule, and the omnipresent narrator (played by Gibson’s 90 year old grandmother) tells the story of our protagonist as she traverses into a musical world of magical realism steeped in the black American experience.
Step Into the River
Producers: Damien Megherbi and Justin Pechberty
Director/Writer: MA Weijia
15 min., Animation
Lu and Wei are two young girls living in a village nestled on the banks of a river. As the one-child policy has led some families to drown baby girls, they both have a special relationship with this river, which looks like a cradle of tragic stories.
Catharsis (Invited Film)
Producers: Lawrence “LAW” Watford, Mario Concepcion, Genia Lear Morgan and Bobby DeJesus
Director/Writer: Lawrence “LAW” Watford
16 min., narrative
A Black woman in mourning confronts the ambitious District Attorney that refused to prosecute the NYPD officer responsible for her son's death.
The Artist's Way Out
Producer: Jeananne Goossen
Directors: Jeananne Goossen and Robert Jackson
Writer: Jeananne Goossen
8 min., web series
Kandyse McClure and Keon Alexander star in this Canadian indie romantic dramedy about 2 Millenial BIPOC artists hammering out their work and their relationship in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere. They just started dating and now they’re living together...with deadlines!!!
LIVE CHAT - curator/host: Esther Duran
Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Cinema Tropical Present
A Special Screening of Colombian Documentary Feature Calm After the Storm
Mercedes Gaviria’s feature documentary Calm After the Storm is one of the highlights of this year’s Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series, an annual showcase of films directed and produced by women of color. Gaviria’s film, a personal reflection on her relationship with filmmaking, to which she was introduced by her father, renowned Colombian filmmaker Victor Gaviria (Rodrigo D, The Rose Vendor), gives us a unique insight into the process of developing as an artist and the role of our childhood and personal life into this journey. The film premiered in NYC at the Museum of Modern Art’s DOC FORTNIGHT 2021 and is now screening until November 7th at Reel Sisters virtual event. Cinema Tropical is co-presenting the virtual screening with Reel Sisters.
A live chat to talk about the film is scheduled for November 2nd at 7pm, via zoom. Mercedes Gaviria will be discussing her doc feature essay with filmmaker Vladimir Duran (I’m So Happy; So Long Enthusiasm). Award winning director Duran, who knows well Mercedes’ work and her father’s, is the perfect moderator for what promises to be an enticing conversation about women and filmmaking, storytelling and patriarchy, and Latin American cinema.
Cinema Tropical is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the distribution, programming and promotion of Latin American cinema in the United States. The non-profit company was co-founded by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg in 2001. The company serves as a distributor and acquires Latin American films and helps its directors and producers gain national exposure in theaters, institutions, and film festivals.
Calm After the Storm (Invited Film)
Producers: Mercedes Gaviria, Jerónimo Atehortúa
Director/Writer: Mercedes Gaviria
72 min., documentary
Mercedes returns to her native city to join his father, Victor, in the shooting of his film. He is a director who has filmed his family throughout the years. In the encounter of both filmmakers’ ways of looking, her mother’s silence and her brother’s stubbornness, Mercedes embraces the time they shared in their home videos and her family’s endless contradictions in order to find her own beginning.
LIVE CHAT - surviving COVID - curator/host: Kim Singleton
Covered
Producer: Extra Room, The Damnable Deprivation of Dmitri
Director/Writer: Cherrye J. Davis
6:23 min., narrative
In a COVID impacted New York City, X, a black woman jogger, has a few things to consider before going outside for a run.
Sorry for the Incovenience
Producer/Director/Writer: Jane Chow
6:28 min., narrative
In Los Angeles Chinatown, a lonely teenager tries to help her parents keep their seafood restaurant afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between chopping green beans and packing takeout orders, she attempts to hang on to a semblance of normalcy by studying for her driver’s permit and prepping for her high school Zoom theater debut in “The Tempest”.
Hand, Writing
Producer: Vanessa Ragone
Director: Ileana Solomonoff and Julia Solomonoff
15 min., documentary
Is handwriting over?
After the Lockdown, Episode 6
Producers: Joy Shannon and Jonathan Burnett
Director: Charles Burnett
32 min., web series
Out of a total of nine episodes, Charles Burnett directs episode six. In this episode he explores how Blacks in Hollywood experienced COVID-19 and the social dynamics that makes Blacks more vulnerable to the coronavirus. Via Zoom, Charles Burnett has hard-hitting conversations with Debbie Allen (actress, dancer, choreographer, director, producer) Bill Duke (actor, director, producer) Sheryl Lee Ralph (actress, singer, author, activist) Ayuko Babu (Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Pan African Film Festival) and others.
curator/host: Zanah Thirus
Wonderfully Made
Director: Benita Ozoude
15 min., documentary
Kashmiere Culberson is a young African American woman who embodies strength and confidence. Kash was born without arms, but she does not allow her disability to limit her pursuit of happiness and self-love. This observational piece gives us a glimpse of her world.
A Song of Grace
Producers: Jessica Ann Peavy and Jamil McGinnis
Director/Writer: Arielle C. Knight
11 min., documentary
A Song of Grace takes us inside the world of 12-year-old Grace Moore, a classical music composer from Brooklyn New York. In the Summer of 2020, The New York Philharmonic debuted one of Grace’s original compositions propelling her into the public eye. The film weaves a tender portrait of the magic of black motherhood and what it takes to raise a young gifted black child.
¡Llámame Chinita!
Producers: Stacy Chu, Richard Alvarenga, Fernando Barajas and Juan Carlos Ayvar
Director/Writer: Stacy Chu
22 min., narrative
Lulu, a 30-year old woman from China, travels alone to Mexico in the middle of the Pandemic. Despite her distance from home, her daily life and pressures seem to follow.
Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power
Producers: Abby Ginzberg, Shola Lynch and Jonathan Logan
Director: Abby Ginzberg
83 min., documentary
Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power tells the complex story of Representative Barbara Lee, a steadfast voice for human rights, peace and equality in the U.S. Congress who cut her teeth as a volunteer for the Black Panther Party and was the lone voice in opposition to the broad authorization of military force after the September 11th attacks.
Coping and Growing
Pure
Producers: Alexyss Robinson, Natalie Jasmine Harris and Natalie Holley
Director/Writer: Natalie Jasmine Harris
12 min., narrative
On the eve of her cotillion ball, a young Black girl grapples with her queer identity and questions her purity.
A Tree Fell Today
Producer: Simone McIntyre
Director/Writer: Oliver Crawford
17 min., experimental
Elise revisits the traumatic memories of her lover Jessica committing suicide due to the catastrophic death of their child, struggling to escape the eternal circle of anguish and misery she tries to move forward but she is stuck in an endless loop.
Brake
Producer: María Andrea Acosta
Directors: Aja M. Weary and Amanda
4 min., animation
BRAKE is a 2D-3D hybrid Animation about a man that endures sensory overload from attempting to travel. He and his service animal are denied entry which sends him into a panic. His service animal works to get him back to his senses.
In A Beat
Producers: Natasha Mynhier, Hannah Kallaoun and Mark Mynhier
Director/Writer: Natasha Mynhier
31 min., narrative
Darrel, a young Black autistic boy, convinces his mom to let him stay home alone so she can pursue a once in a lifetime opportunity. But when unexpected circumstances surface, he must find a unique way to cope with his meltdown alone
The Reunion
Producers: Zidan Wang and Yicheng Li
Director/Writer: Zidan Wang
23 min., narrative
The Reunion follows the unusual home-coming journey of Jia-qing, a single woman who is struggling to freeze her eggs and preserve her chances of having a baby. While Jia-qing navigates the world of infertility treatment in the concrete jungle of Shanghai, she crosses paths with her childhood friend Xiao-xiao, a struggling single mother and her young daughter Anne.
Live chat - where I'm coming from - curator/host: Esther Duran
Blackness is Everything
Producers: Amasha Lyons-Clark and My-Hanh Lac
Director: Alba Rolanda Mejia Writer: Donté Clark
4 min., experimental
Blackness is Everything is an experimental/performative short film that celebrates the diversity of the Black diaspora in The Bay Area. Produced by BAYCAT Studio with funding from the Skoll Foundation.
Dolapo is Fine
Producer: Millie Marsh
Director: Ethosheia Hylton Writers: Joan Iyiola and Chibundu Onuzo
15 min., narrative
A story about a young black girl's relationship with her hair and name, and how it helps her understand who she really is.
Eavesdropping on the Elders
Producers: Kiah Clingman and Shaka Satori (The African-American Legacy Network)
Directors: Kiah Clingmand and Robinson Vil
Writers: Kiah Clingman and C.J. Sykes
18 min., narrative
A girl is unknowingly challenged with the task of bridging the gap between two generations. With a little help from her father, she's forced into another world where she's confronted with lessons from the past.
Firelei Báez: An Open Horizon (or) the Stillness of a Wound
Producer: Hannah Swayze
Director: Souki Mehdaoui
8 min., documentary
Exquisitely detailed and vibrantly colored, acclaimed New York artist Firelei Báez’s paintings of dramatically shapeshifting figures assert the power of the female form and challenge fundamental ideas around beauty and agency.
#WeAreDyingHere
Producers: Bianca Schmitz, Siphokazi Jonas, Siya Kolisi and Rachel Kolisi
Director: Shane Vermooten
Writer: Siphokazi Jonas
25 min., narrative
#WeAreDyingHere chronicles the journey of three soldiers forced to survive in a war that they did not choose. As the war against women rages around them, they attempt to find solace to process their pain under the constant threat of their enemy lurking in the shadows.
Girls Rule
American Eid
Producers: Leslie Owen and Steak house
Director/Writer: Aqsa Altaf
19 min., narrative
Ameena, a Pakistani immigrant, wakes up on Eid to find out that she has to go to school. Homesick and heartbroken, she goes on a mission to make Eid a public-school holiday, and in the process, reconnects with her older sister, and embraces her new home, while her new home embraces her.
Continuing A Legacy
Producer/Director/Writer: Elizabeth Bayne
32 min., documentary
Continuing A Legacy is a short documentary about the year-in-the-life of a Black cowboy family. Following a single season with 11-year-old junior rodeo competitor London Gladney and her family, the film shows that it takes more than winning to raise a champion.
Kanya
Producers: Apoorva Satish, FAMU International and Michal Sikora
Director: Apoorva Satish
Writers: Apoorva Satish and Vidhya Iyer
16 min., narrative
A coming-of-age drama about an adolescent girl growing up between the values of occidental and traditional culture, whose aspirations of becoming a competitive swimmer takes an unexpected turn when she gets her first period.
Hello from Taiwan
Producers: Marina Viscun, Guo Guo Jiayi, Wenjie Kong
Director/Writer: Tiffany Frances
16 min., narrative
After a year of separation, a young Taiwanese American girl and her mom struggle to reconnect with her dad and two older sisters across familial and cultural divides.
First Light
Producers: Stephanie Gumpel and Ellen Boscov
Director/Animator: Amy Lee Ketchum
8 min., animation
Rising from the sea monster of death, a young woman’s ghost leads her grieving sister through the heart of darkness in search of light.
Apart, Together
Producer: Blanca Balleste
Director/Writer: Olivia Hang Zhou
19 min., narrative
A Chinese teenage girl travels with her mom to States as a translator, in order to find her abandoned sister under the One-child-policy. She’s faced with the decision when she secretly finds her sister — to tell her mom and risk their relationship or to forever keep it to herself.
Esther & Sai
Producers: Jon Warne and Jesse Copeland
Directors: Rosie Choo Pidcock and Anaïsa Visser
Writer: Rosie Choo Pidcock
12 min., narrative
The night before their first day of nursing school in 1976, two female immigrants to Vancouver endure racism and homesickness.
A Poem by Alba
Producer: Sam Retzer
Director/Writer: Yoo Lee
5 min., animation
An elderly woman living alone in her apartment deals with loneliness and her eventual end.
Hollywood's Architect: The Paul R. Williams
Producers: Royal Kennedy Rodgers, Kathy McCampbell Vance and Shirlyn A. Cesar
Directors: Royal Kennedy Rodgers and Kathy McCampbell
Writer: Royal Kennedy Rodgers
56 min., documentary
Nicknamed “Architect to the Stars,” African American architect Paul R. Williams had a life story that could have been dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter. Orphaned at the age of four, Williams grew up to build mansions for movie stars and millionaires in Southern California. From the early 1920s until his retirement 50 years later, Williams was one of the most successful architects in the country. His list of residential clients included Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.