Open CallEviction Notice: Completed Productions
1. Pitch | 2. Rate Pitches | 3. Produce | 4. Rough Cuts | 5. Completed Productions
"One hundred and fifty years after the end of slavery, Americans continue to struggle with the legacy of this history and its impacts on society and on every day life."
In winter of 2007, filmmakers were encouraged to pitch us ideas on this Open Call theme. From the many submitted pitches, 10 were selected for consideration and 5 were ultimately produced and promoted with Banished, an Independent Lens and National Black Programming Consortium documentary. Watch their finished results below!
Swim
Bi-Racial Hair
Taxi
Reparation Blues
In winter of 2007, filmmakers were encouraged to pitch us ideas on this Open Call theme. From the many submitted pitches, 10 were selected for consideration and 5 were ultimately produced and promoted with Banished, an Independent Lens and National Black Programming Consortium documentary. Watch their finished results below!
Completed Productions:
The Ghosts of John Jay HighSwim
Bi-Racial Hair
Taxi
Reparation Blues
| The Ghosts of John Jay High |
Pitched by:
Sarah Gonser - Brooklyn, NY Lance Kruger - Brooklyn, NY John Jay High students are primarily African American, or Hispanic, and bussed in from the projects. This isn’t a particularly unusual scene except for its location: the heart of Park Slope, Brooklyn, home to multimillion-dollar brownstones and peacenik liberals. While residents keep their distance, the school’s administrators struggle to make a clean break from an intensely violent past. This short film features seven bright and accomplished seniors who—with clarity, ferocity, humor, and wisdom—cry foul at being unfairly lumped in with the school’s thuggish past. Watch + Rate > Read Producers' Bios > |
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| Bi-Racial Hair |
Pitched by:
Lisa Russell - Brooklyn, NY Thirteen year-old Zora’s poem “Bi-racial Hair” serves as the thread for this satirical look at the racism young African Americans of mixed ethnic background face. Weaving fictional re-enactments with candid interviews conducted by Zora, the film illustrates everything from Zora’s comedic rant about styling her hair to more serious issues of identity and belonging 150 years after the abolishment of slavery. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| Taxi (2008) |
Pitched by:
Javan Cornelius - Huntsville, AL Talkative cab drivers are in every major U.S. city. They entertain and provoke and forge relationships with repeat customers. Leveraging these bonds, we intend to select the most popular cabbie in Huntsville, Alabama and ask him to start a conversation about how Americans should deal with the effects of past racism, expulsion, and reparation issues. We hope to hear many opinions from the young and old from different backgrounds. Shot in black and white using a two-camera set up, the film will be punctuated by a score reflecting the mood of the interviews. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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| Swim |
Pitched by:
Jon Goldman - Woods Hole, MA Chip Moore - Cambridge, MA For many people the idea of an “out of the way” beach means an idyllic surrounding separated from the realities of the world; for African American fisheries biologist Jearld Ambrose, swimming as a child at segregated Atlantic Beach, South Carolina was his only option. SWIM is an animated short about Jearld’s memories of family trips to the sea. The film explores the subject using hand-drawn and computer-based animation with archival footage both aural and visual. Watch + Rate > Read Producers' Bios > |
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| Reparation Blues |
Pitched by:
Alfred Santana - Brooklyn, NY At the United Nations’ World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001, talks over reparations for the trans Atlantic slave trade became so contentious that the U.S. delegation staged a dramatic walk out. I propose to shoot a performance piece revolving around “Reparation Blues,” a poem by artist Ghail Rhodes-Benjamin. This hybrid film will juxtapose performance of the verse with verité footage of the U.S. walk out and the response of African American activists in order to highlight the struggle to have the issues of reparation heard around the world. Watch + Rate > Read Producer's Bio > |
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