Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series returns to New York this weekend with 25 films directed, produced or written by women of color from Brooklyn to Great Britain.
Held from Oct. 15 to Oct. 16, 2011 at the Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts on Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, Reel Sisters concludes with an awards ceremony and reception. Honored this year will be Moikgantsi Kgama, founder of ImageNation Cinema Foundation and Pearl Bowser, pioneering filmmaker, scholar and author.
After the jump, see a lineup of noted films from the event, including a short produced by yours truly.
Urban Lullaby
8 min., Narrative
Director/Producer: Sonia Gonzalez-Martinez
Synopsis: A stressed-out artist is at the breaking point in her noisy Bronx neighborhood.
Little Brother: The Street
15min., Documentary
Producer/Director: Nicole Franklin Producer: Jasmin Tiggett
Little Brother is a series of films in which young African American boys share their relationship with Love. As a follow up to the debut film, Little Brother: Things Fall Apart, this second chapter has the camera accompanying young men during their walk home from school on the very active streets of Chicago’s inner city.
How do you tell somebody that you’re HIV+?
13:10 min., Documentary
Director/Producer: Hima B.
The film follows a day in the life of Haneefa, a young African American woman who struggles to disclose her HIV status to her ex-boyfriend.
Harriet Returns
9 min., Narrative
Director: Marquis Smalls Writer: Tamu Favorite
Synopsis: Harriet Returns is a short film in which Harriet Tubman urgently returns to modern times to emancipate two young wanna-be rappers who use the “N” word as a term of endearment. She believes they have enslaved themselves.
Production
18 min., Narrative, Director: Lenny Payan Writer: Carmen Scott
Producers: Carmen Scott, Lenny Payan
Synopsis: Danielle feels like the littlest person in the room. Her job as the script coordinator for a wildly popular television drama sounds exciting, but with a job description of “copy, collate, repeat,” she doesn’t quite agree. When producers introduce plans to shoot an ill-conceived “urban” episode of the show, Danielle finally feels compelled to use her voice.
Truth about Beauty and Blogs
13 min., 1 sec., Narrative
Director: Rosalyn Coleman Williams
Producer: Craig T. Williams, Toni Robison-May, Kelechi Ezie
Synopsis: A social media diva is thrown off her game when her boyfriend’s web activities start to interfere with her picture-perfect image.
The Naked Option
64 min., Documentary
Director/Producer: Candace Schermerhorn
Synopsis: The Naked Option reveals the inspiring story of an organized group of Nigerian women who use the threat of stripping naked in public, a serious cultural taboo, to make their voices heard. The film documents their perilous struggle to hold multinational oil companies accountable to the communities in which they operate.
For additional details and tickets, visit www.reelsisters.org.
