Call for Entries: Women of African Descent Film Festival

Posted on January 28, 2017 by blackchickmedia

Call for Entries: The 16th Annual Women of African Descent Film Festival

Still from SANKOFA. Produced by Mariona Lloreta

The 16th Annual Women of African Descent Film Festival presented by The Brooklyn Chapter of The Links, Inc. now opens its CALL FOR ENTRIES. If you would like to see an example of the lineup from WADFF 2016, click here.

Please contact wadffbklyn@gmail.com with questions regarding the festival.

MISSION & OBJECTIVE To showcase films which are centered around the theme of Linkages: Women, Their Families, Neighborhoods, and the Global Community, and to support the artistic development of Women filmmakers of African Descent by providing a supportive exhibition platform, offering stipends to participants, and seeking industry opportunities that will help to expose the filmmakers’ works and further their careers.

Still from BLK GRL POET. Produced by Kearah-Armonie

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL The Women of African Descent Film Festival (WADFF) is celebrating its 16th Anniversary in 2017. The media constantly bombards us with negative images of people of African descent. Our positive accomplishments, uplifting experiences, and gifts to humanity get little attention. The Brooklyn Chapter believes it is vitally important that our legacy be maintained, nurtured and preserved and it is our responsibility to shape the public’s perception of who we are as a people. Through the medium of film, filmmakers of African descent document and relay the stories of our past, present, and future. They have become the new historians –“preservers of our legacy.” The Brooklyn Chapter realizes that many societal misconceptions start with how we are portrayed in the media. To counteract the adverse portrayal of African Americans in the movies and media, the Brooklyn Chapter, in 2002, initiated Linkages: Women of African Descent Film Festival. By choosing and screening films that depict the positive linkages that women of African descent have to their families, neighborhoods and communities, the film festival is able to effectively influence people’s’ perceptions through the medium of film.

GENERAL RULES & SUBMISSION GUIDELINES All films must be produced, written or

Still from STRINGS ATTACHED. Produced by Marc John Jefferies & Nelcie Souffrant

directed by a female filmmaker of African descent, must have been completed on or after June 1, 2012, and must be 1 hour at most in length. Submission deadline is Friday, March 24th. Juror’s Choice Awards and stipends will be presented to the participating filmmakers.

Local, regional, national and international submissions are accepted.

Filmmakers are encouraged to submit a digital and/or online version of their films in a format such as AVI, FLV, WMV, MP4, MOV, QT, WMV, AVCHD, FLV, H.264, or DivX. If these file formats do not exist, please submit a link to your film on a site such as Vimeo, YouTube, Dailymotion, or MetaCafe. If applicable, include all passwords for video access.

DVD and VHS copies will not be accepted.

Please note: there is no submission fee. With your playable submission, please include a synopsis, crew list, press kit and any stills you would like to appear in the program and/or advertisements.

Send all films to: wadffbklyn@gmail.com

THE EVENT WADFF 2017 will take place Saturday, May 6, 2017 at LIU Brooklyn (corner of Flatbush and Dekalb Avenues), Media Arts Department, Spike Lee Reading Room, 10am-6pm.

THE LINKS Formed in 1952, The Brooklyn Chapter of The Links is dedicated to the support of educational, civic and cultural activities in Brooklyn. It is a chapter of The Links, Inc. an international, not-for-profit corporation, whose membership consists of 14,000 professional women of color in 282 chapters located in 41 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The Brooklyn Chapter works under the guidelines of its national organization in providing services to its Brooklyn Community in five mission areas: The Arts, Services to Youth, National Trends and Services, International Trends, and Health and Wellness. A focus of the Chapter’s arts programming is to empower women and youth by lending support and encouragement to emerging artists – with a particular focus on filmmakers for the past 16 years. The foundation for all of the chapter’s programs and services is rooted in the African American tradition of giving and volunteerism. Members share a deep sense of communal responsibility, and for the past 66 years, have been committed to actively initiating and supporting educational, cultural, and civic programs that positively impact the lives of people of African descent residing in Brooklyn.

You can ‘Like’ and follow the festival Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/WomenofAfricanDescentFilmFestival/

For #WADFF2017 twitter updates, follow @BlackChickMedia.

Want to learn more about WADFF and the Brooklyn Chapter of the LINKS? Check out our Vimeo page here: https://vimeo.com/164791769

Please contact WADFF Co-Chair Yvonne Presha or Elyse Morris, On-site Coordinator at wadffbklyn@gmail.com.

Still from SANKOFA. Produced by Mariona Lloreta

25th Anniversary Release: Daughters of the Dust

Posted on December 1, 2016 by blackchickmedia

Opening tomorrow in San Francisco, the 25th Anniversary edition of Daughters of the Dust! We are honored to be assisting in the promotion of the re-release of this masterpiece by Julie Dash.

Alva Rogers as “Eula Peazant” (right), Trula Hoosier as “Trula” (center), and Barbara-O as “Yellow Mary Peazant” in Daughters of the Dust Directed by Julie Dash. Photo courtesy of Cohen Film Collection

Daughters of the Dust is the story of conflict and struggle between changing values in the
early 1900’s as a Lowcountry family, living on one of the sea islands, prepares to migrate,
leaving their land and legacy for the promise of the North.

The film focuses on the women of the Peazant Family; the carriers of traditions and beliefs
firmly linked to their African heritage. The story unfolds over the course of a family picnic, the last supper. Along the way, the film saturates us with impressionistic colors, African symbolism, Geechee‐Gullah rituals, cooking, dialect, and the sound of field cries, all expressing the complex resonances of the Lowcountry lifestyle.

Kaycee Moore as “Haagar Peazant” (far left), Alva Rogers as “Eula Peazant” (second from left), Cora Lee Day as “Nana Peazant” (second from right), and Cheryl Lynn Bruce as “Viola Peazant” (right) in Daughters of the Dust Directed by Julie Dash. Photo courtesy of Cohen Film Collection

Daughters of the Dust is set on Dawtuh, (Daughter) a small barrier island among the
hundreds of Sea Islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Fearing the extreme conditions on the island: heat, insects, and the threat of yellow fever, landowners live across the river on the mainland. The inhabitants of Dawtuh, mainly African American, have remained isolated and insulated from the mainland since the very first African Captive was brought ashore.

At the heart of the film, Daughters of the Dust is a story about a family coming to grips with both the past and the precarious present. The film opens with the Peazant family
contemplating and celebrating their decision to leave Ibo Landing, to embark upon a new
life on the mainland. Nana Peazant the family matriarch refuses to leave because of her
deep reverence for the island, the ancestors buried there, and a sense that the North will
not be “the land of milk and honey” her progeny believe it will be.

Cora Lee Day as “Nana Peazant” in Daughters of the Dust Directed by Julie Dash. Photo courtesy of Cohen Film Collection

The structure of the film follows the pattern of the West African Griot, a commissioned
artist who recalls and recounts a family’s history for formal occasions. The story of the
Peazant family is recalled, remembered, and recollected as a circular, non‐linear, dramatic
narrative that evokes the oral tradition of ancient African storytellers.

The Peazants are the descendants of African captives who worked the indigo, rice, and cotton plantations during the period of slavery. These unique African Americans speak a distinct language called Gullah or Geechee. The women in the Peazant family carry inside their heads and pockets, scraps of memories, bits and pieces of family memorabilia left by their earliest remembered ancestors. Among those memories are recollections of a group of Ibo captives, who refusing to live enslaved, walked on top of ocean water to get back to Africa.

SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY

Posted on December 9, 2014 by blackchickmedia

“SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL takes us from the founding of NOW, with ladies in hats and gloves, to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation; from intellectuals like Kate Millett to the street theatrics of W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell!). Artfully combining dramatizations, performance and archival imagery, the film recounts the stories of women who fought for their own equality, and in the process created a world-wide revolution.

SHE’S BEAUTIFUL does not try to romanticize the early movement, but dramatizes it in its exhilarating, quarrelsome, sometimes heart-wrenching glory. The film does not shy away from the controversies over race, sexual preference and leadership that arose in the women’s movement. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY captures the spirit of the time — thrilling, scandalous, and often hilarious.

That story still resonates today for women who are facing new challenges around reproductive rights and sexual violence, as the film shows present-day activists creating their generation’s own version of feminism. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is a film about activists, made to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights. ”

If you’d like to join in the social media converge of this amazing film, please use the hashtag #StillBeautifulStillAngry.