Reel Sisters 25th Anniversary Retrospective
Celebrates Award-Winning Harlem Filmmaker Randall Dottin!
On Mon., Feb. 28, 2022 at 6:30 pm, Reel Sisters Tea & Cinema Harlem Series will kick off with a special online screening of Lifted and Fevah directed by Randall Dottin whose groundbreaking film honoring a single young mother’s struggle to raise her son set the tone for the power of short narratives to impact audiences.
Lifted screened in Reel Sisters 2007 season to a sold out audience with an emotionally charged conversation around self-care and parenting. Infused with dance, magical realism and inspiration, Randall’s exceptional storytelling and directing makes Lifted one of Reel Sisters all time favorite films celebrating a strong Black woman lead character.
Kim Singleton, Consider It Black Lit host and Reel Sisters Curator, will moderate the conversation!
aBout our filmmaker
Randall Dottin
Randall Dottin received his BA from Dartmouth and his MFA from the Columbia University Graduate Film Division. His thesis film A-ALIKE was licensed for a two-year broadcast run by HBO and won numerous awards including the Gold Medal at the 2004 Student Academy Awards. His second short LIFTED was sponsored by Fox Searchlight’s program for emerging directors – the Fox Searchlab. In 2009, INDIEWire named Randall one of the “Ten Exciting New Voices in Black Cinema.”
In July 2015, Lifted premiered on CBS as part of a collection of short films. Randall recently wrote and directed FEVAH, a short film starring Russell Hornsby (The Hate U Give, Fences) and LaRoyce Hawkins (Chicago PD). His documentary series THE HOUSE I NEVER KNEW is currently in production and explores how six families in Chicago, Houston and Boston fight against becoming casualties of housing segregation. The series recently received a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. Recently, Dottin co-wrote, co-directed and produced MINE, an animated series whose pilot recently premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.
Dottin is Chair of the Screenwriting Department at New York Film Academy’s New York City campus where his former students have won screenwriting awards, film festivals and have recently began careers as staff writers and producers on American, South African and European television shows.
Leading Cast of Lifted
Quisha Freeman
Quisha Freeman, raised in St. Paul, MN, spent her childhood training at her grandmother’s studio, Larkin Dance Studio. She received a scholarship to study Drama in college but left after her freshman year to begin her professional career. Soon after, she was asked to play the role of Durla in the Broadway National tour of Best Little W. House In Texas starring Ann Margret, the First national tour for Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, along with performances in Europe for the musicals Fame and West Side Story. Quisha assisted in choreography workshops for such Broadway productions as All Shook Up, Good Vibrations, and Sister Act. She was seen on such TV shows as Law & Order and the hit NBC comedy series 30 Rock, and films Across the Universe, and Lifted. Out of all her experiences, she finds the most joy in teaching and choreographing and the opportunity to give back. She is a certified Teaching Artist with the National Dance Institute founded by Jacques d’Amboise in NYC. She has been able to pull her experience from television, stage and screen to bring versatility and knowledge into her classroom. Quisha continues to judge, teach and choreograph across the country.
Maryam Myika Day
Maryam Myika Day is an actress, writer, podcaster and Telly Award-winning producer. As screenwriter, Maryam has penned the untold story of Tammi Terrell for the upcoming biopic MOUNTAIN HIGH, starring Kat Graham, produced by producer Suzanne DePasse and Brad Krevoy of Motion Picture Corporation of America. Maryam sold the story idea and later wrote a Christmas television movie, A SISTERLY CHRISTMAS, starring Deborah Joy Winans; which premiered on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on December 7th, 2021, with subsequent airings on Discovery+. Also in 2021, she joined the writing team and created the storyline for Lifetime’s WRATH of the Seven Deadly Sins franchise executive produced by T.D. Jakes and Shaun Robinson. Airdate for WRATH is set for Spring 2022.
In 2018, her made-for-television-movie about Jennifer Jones, the first African American Radio City Music Hall Rockette, had been optioned by MarVista Entertainment as well. “Love Me Richie!,” Maryam’s one-act stage play, premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and is in development; it was most recently nurtured at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. Maryam is a two-time Sundance Screenwriter’s Fellowship finalist, and is currently working on a secret project of musical icon MAXWELL/Zak Tanjeloff, she has written an unproduced project for John Sacchi entitled, VEGAS JADE and is developing an original podcast idea with producer Concord Theatricals. She is also in talks with Whitney Davis of Anthony Hemingway Productions for a new television idea based on her life and inspired by her podcast of the same name entitled, NORTH OF 40.
Reel Sisters Tea & Cinema Series is supported, in part, by the West Harlem Development Corp., National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Council members Laurie Cumbo, Farah Louis and Bill Perkins! Harlem World Magazine is the media sponsor for Reel Sisters Tea & Cinema Harlem Series! Please look out for our full events calendar coming soon!