02/06/2020

Anti-racism resources for white people





This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Here is a shorter link: bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES
To take immediate action to fight for Breonna Taylor, please visit FightForBreonna.org.
Resources for white parents to raise anti-racist children:
  • Books:
  • Podcasts:
  • Articles:
  • The Conscious Kid: follow them on Instagram and consider signing up for their Patreon
Articles to read:
Videos to watch:
Podcasts to subscribe to:
Books to read:
Films and TV series to watch:
  • 13th (Ava DuVernay) — Netflix
  • American Son (Kenny Leon) — Netflix
  • Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 — Available to rent
  • Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu) — Available to rent
  • Dear White People (Justin Simien) — Netflix
  • Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler) — Available to rent
  • I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin doc) — Available to rent or on Kanopy
  • If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) — Hulu
  • Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton) — Available to rent
  • King In The Wilderness  — HBO
  • See You Yesterday (Stefon Bristol) — Netflix
  • Selma (Ava DuVernay) — Available to rent
  • The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution — Available to rent
  • The Hate U Give (George Tillman Jr.) — Hulu with Cinemax
  • When They See Us (Ava DuVernay) — Netflix
Organizations to follow on social media:
More anti-racism resources to check out:
Document compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein in May 2020.



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About #BlackoutTuesday





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Arnolfini: More to come!


So many more projects with this great institution!

Here is a little film from 2016 about the Arnolfini art centre in Bristol:


Arnolfini: Museum of the Year 2016 finalist




In 2015 the Bristol gallery and arts centre embarked on an extensive programme of transformation, while delivering a superb contemporary arts programme. 

 Film by Northern Town: http://northerntown.co.uk/ 
Subtitled by Stagetext http://www.stagetext.org/





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American Nightmare, envisioned 10 years ago


SUBURBAN WAR 
 This is what I was writing before moving to Kenya, in the summer 2010, spent between London and Paris. 
I had lived in the US of A. in 2008, until November, when Barack Obama was elected President of the country, yet, based in Miami during the last months of the Brush presidency, I had witnessed a very high level of segregation and poverty... 
This was just a draft, but that gives you an idea.

-
SUBURBAN WAR - TEXT
« I’m not gonna spend my life being a colour… »

PRELUDE

This day was a slightly rainy day but she didn’t bother taking any umbrella leaving home in the morning. The city is so big, the crowd is so dense, why bother fighting even more against others just to avoid a bunch of raindrops?  
She was walking as if she was carrying her whole life on her shoulders. Her eyes were lost in the front view with nowhere to hang on. She was just heading to one of those news conferences they kept on holding to pretend they were still journalists, their country still existed, and their lives were moving forward. But for her, all this had become meaningless, and she could hardly stand forcing herself to keep on playing this role. She gave up her radio show “temporarily”, she said. The truth was that she could hardly speak, even in her personal daily life. She used to be a brilliant talk show host, a gifted newsreader, and an attractive presenter. But since the end of the war she did not feel like talking to anyone. The only thing she could think of was the trial. It was still very hard to believe the war was over and the justice system had managed to take over all this tragedy. In the next coming weeks, she realised, both countries would stare at their own former united fate through the case of one of its fallen stars. 
Alicia stopped to wait at a crossroad, what she usually never did. She wonders, what have become of those past ten years? Ten years ago, when the National Radio, the NR, hired her, she was full of hope and passion. She was only 28 and a young and naïve journalist who had everything to prove. And now? Does she even care?
The traffic lights turn red. The crowd starts moving towards the opposite sidewalk. She doesn’t really move but she gets carried away by the group. She looks over, beyond skyscrapers, to the sky. The greyness seems to have become the colour of the earth on this side of the planet, she thinks. Once on the other side of the street, she wants to keep on her way to the radio studios, but something stops her. She slows down, avoiding the crowd on the sidewalk. She stares at the floor covered in water. It’s a slightly rainy day. She does not wear an umbrella. She’s getting wet. But something else stops her. She has the feeling… someone… someone is here, in the middle of this crowd. She doesn’t want to pay any attention to this feeling. She tries to start walking again.  “Even if he was here, I don’t care”, she tells herself. “What could he change now?” But the feeling is stronger; she slows down again and slowly turns back. She seems to look into the crowd as if she was seeking for someone she already sees. She stares at a point in the middle of the street. Above her, the rain is getting stronger, hitting her head, her shoulders, as she stands weaker and weaker. And sees him.

PART ONE – THE WAR

CHAPTER ONE

Alicia knows it now. The 50-State Nation is on the edge of a civil war. “How come our multi-ethnic nation, praised as a land of hope, has turned into such a ground of hatred?”, is her first thought every time she wakes up.
I feel like on our social scale, only some groups seem to get permitted to succeed, others only get stricken, she thinks. And now, those black groups are forming a rebellion… Militias want to defeat our government’s army. What can I say? I do think too a part of this government is turning into a fascist movement.
Yesterday, on the radio show, I invited the sociologist Terry Jimmins just in a delusive attempt to try to talk about saving the peace. My team of producers as well as myself, we know our duty is now to stop the government from becoming a dictatorship. But what can we really change? We are already struggling just to correctly do our job.
Benjamin thinks the same way. When I saw him last week at this benefit dinner, I was relieved. Since last month, I kept on wondering, “why hasn’t he returned my last calls? Why does he seem to be avoiding me?” I read his columns vividly, hoping to find a sign of contestation of this new order. Thousands of Black citizens have been arrested without any reasons in the South those past three months. The police just claim they are a threat to safety and social peace. I know Benjamin, he has always been caring for social justice, he has Black friends; he had me… He can’t be indifferent to all this. And his voice has become so powerful nowadays. His column in the Urban Daily is a must read. The colour of his skin won’t stop him from remaining the very same brilliant man I’ve adored so much since college. But I could not get any opinion from his writing. I thought, it’s typical of him, he’s a journalist above everything; he keeps on thinking his personal opinion is irrelevant in his newspaper. I wonder if we can still afford to think that way. So I asked him at the dinner. “Are you afraid to be seen with someone like me?” He freaked out. “What are you talking about, Alicia?” he replied grabbing my arm and taking me apart. “Are you insane? Don’t you know me? Why would I ever think that way?” He felt insulted. He wiped away my fears. “Off course, I’m worried by our government’s drift. But I can’t afford to be taken for a foolish naïve. I have to be more clever than that, Alicia”.
Ben thinks the political context is so serious that everyone who is attached to the value of freedom has to feel threatened by this government. And to remain useful, we have to stay powerful, he says.  

When we left the dinner, I couldn’t help but thinking, “those policemen at the entrance staring at us, do they see a white man and woman of mixed race walking out together”? Will we simply be Alicia Brown and Benjamin Karr ever again?
-  


Paris, August 4, 2010

The 50-State nation is on the edge of a civil war.
Black groups are forming a rebellion and militias to defeat the government’s army turning into a fascist movement.
Two journalists hoping to save the peace as well as to stop the government from becoming a dictatorship struggle to correctly do their job.
A man, white. A woman, mixed race. 
As a few states start to fall into ravaging battles, the most popular black musician of the country is arrested and accused of murder and plot against state’s safety.
Both journalists, very good friends, very professional, try to get access to the artist to report on the truth of this story that can become a very convenient way for the government to spread its propaganda about the Black population. 
(...)


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30/05/2020

Toni Morrison on Racism



Toni Morrison's powerful words on racism



Toni Morrison, who chronicled the African American experience in fiction over five decades has died aged 88 in 2019. The novelist was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and is widely regarded as a champion for repressed minorities. 

Speaking on racism, Morrison said in an interview: "If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is white people have a very, very serious problem".




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A few years ago, I wrote a book project about Toni Morrison, her books and her life, in France, but two publishers told me it wouldn't sell. And there is no book in France about her to this day, though her novels sell so well... 

  

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29/05/2020

Farewell She Goes


A project really worth checking!!

See this crowdfunding


Farewell She Goes is a late 18th century story about two young women who sneak away from their strict stately home existence to lay their pet canary to rest.
One white, one mixed race; these are cousins bonded by more than blood. Stood at the cusp of the ocean, it soon transpires that one of them is pregnant, and they contemplate what should be done.
WHY DO WE WANT TO TELL THIS STORY?
Our vision for Farewell She Goes was born from, and inspired by, the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804). Dido was born to an enslaved African woman and white naval officer who sent her to be raised alongside her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray in England. As the two women grew up side by side and shunned racial conventions, they defied society and formed a unique bond. This, to us, is where the intrigue lies.   
For years, women in film have poured the tea, kissed the lips and been talked at by men. Now, finally, they've started talking (PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, FLEABAG, BOOKSMART). We are creating a film that seeks to help this wave of change grow to a tsunami.
This is a story where two women, their intricacies and complexities as individuals, and their relationship with the world and with each other is unashamedly and deservedly the sole focus. This being a friendship between a white and a mixed-race woman, with their lives inextricably linked, is something that we still seldom see in a modern context - let alone a period film.
The period drama genre has seen waves of interest in the past year, but still black women are relegated to playing the maid; a footnote in the history books. Not only is this factually incorrect - for wealthy, independent women of colour existed, as evidenced in the historical reality of Dido Elizabeth Belle - but it is a disservice to the inclusive and expansive stories that we could be telling.
The heart of this story is a friendship between two women, grappling with life changing circumstances, whose secrets lie at the bottom of the ocean and whose hearts lie with each other.
The plan is to submit Farewell She Goes to as many international film festivals as possible. Once the initial film festival run is complete, we plan to bring the film to art houses and streaming platforms around the globe. A feature length script is already in development and we plan to use this short as a proof of concept to gain sufficient financial support to shoot the feature-length version.
Our goal is to use this film, not only as a beautiful and poetic story to inspire and empower women globally, but to raise awareness, support and funding for women's rights. We will be partnering with a women's organisation to host a Gala event in London in 2021 in which we screen the film, invite influential individuals and organisations and raise both money and awareness for our partnered charity and the many many women who need it. 
A MESSAGE FROM OUR DIRECTOR 
A couple of months ago a friend posted on Facebook
‘Anyone got any films about female friendship you’d recommend?’
I stopped and thought about it for a while. Which films were there that I could suggest, that were entirely about female friendship? Not at all to do with a man? The Bechdel test reared its head and challenged me. Pitifully, I could think of very few mainstream films that do follow this. When Isabella and Cat approached me with FAREWELL SHE GOES, I was delighted to read a script that really was purely about female friendship. This doesn’t mean it’s all happiness and sunshine, of course, because that’s not what female friendship is. Even in this brief window into the world of our two protagonists, we see love, frustration and admiration play out in full. These are rounded characters with flaws, and they are all the better for it. 
Through the metaphor of what to do with the ill-fated canary, these women consider the illegitimate pregnancy at hand and what should be done. This too appealed to me, as it is a conversation we still comparatively rarely see on screen. Whether to have a child or not is still presented as a fairly clear choice: if you are married, do, if you are not, do not. But when there is life growing inside of you, this is surely not such a simple decision to make. In putting these issues through a period drama lens, I actually feel that Isabella and Cat have made them feel even more pertinent, by highlighting how little has changed over the centuries, and how we still need to lift the stigma on such topics. 
I’m hugely excited by the potential to bring a modern and authored directorial approach to the film. I want to push myself to make bold choices and take the audience on an emotional roller coaster. 
I hope that FAREWELL SHE GOES will inspire many other future filmmakers, female or not, to consider how drama does not have to be centred around a romantic relationship, and that period dramas in particular do not all have to be about discussing the best potential suitor over afternoon tea.
THE TEAM 
Sophie King - Director  
Sophie is a BFI Net.Work x BAFTA Crew listed director and NFTS graduate. Her shorts have been shown at numerous BAFTA and Oscar qualifying festivals worldwide including Encounters, Underwire and St Louis, and have been distributed on primetime US television, Amazon and iTunes.
Her latest film, SWAN, stars Mark Addy and was produced as part of the Uncertain Kingdom scheme. Released by Verve Pictures, it will tour cinemas nationwide in 2020.
Ann Evelin Lawford - Cinematographer 
Anne Evelin is an award winning Dutch cinematographer, currently based in London. She is a lover of fine art, the sublimity of nature, supporter of mental health, an environmentalist and humanist, and adores the eternal qualities and textures of film. She has shot projects for Channel 4, BBC, Nike, Burberry and Mulberry amongst others. Her training in artist film makes Ann Evelin the perfect fit to bring an extra dimension and painterly feel to our film.
Claire Tailyour - Writer 
Claire is an award winning writer of documentary and drama. She studied at USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is a BAFTA Crew member, a Sundance International Scriptwriter Semi-finalist ’15, and a Semi-finalist for The Academy Awards’ Nicholl Fellowship ’08 for her feature script TURNPIKE. Claire was a Producer at the BBC for many years before leaving in 2013 to set up her own production company Slackwire Films whose first commission was the steampunk sci-fi Ruby's Skin starring John Bowe (THE HOUR, SILENT WITNESS, CORONATION STREET) and Olivia Cooke (ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL, BATES MOTEL).
Savannah Power - Producer 
Savannah started in factual TV docs before producing her first feature, Ilkley, soon to be released. She has produced and line produced numerous shorts and commercials, working on a BBC proof of concept with Elation pictures, and more recently with Pulse Films, Radical Media and with the Uncertain Kingdom scheme producing one of their 20 short films entitled SWAN. She is also a producer alongside Helen Simmons and Stephanie Aspin for Erebus Pictures who are developing numerous film and television project with a whole host of various directors and writers.
Backscatter Productions Ltd 
Backscatter Productions is an award winning, female-led production company that stands as a platform for new and diverse voices in the film industry. Set up in 2018, they produced two short films in 2019, their first, Clementines, has gone on to achieve global success at festivals winning multiple awards. 
LOCATION
The Jurrasic coast in Dorset will form the backdrop of the film. The Jurrasic coast is an area of outstanding beauty with its dramatic cliffs, rolling trails and sandy beaches. Lulworth Cove, Kimmeridge Bay, Durdle Door and Chesil Beach are possibilities. There are no towns between Swanage and Weymouth so the coastline is almost entirely untouched, with beautiful deserted bays and caves.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Each shot will be perfectly composed in a painterly and almost stylised way, with softly lit figures precisely balanced in the frame, often surrounded by vast beautiful scenery. This represents how society often sees these women as beautiful objects within a painting, and yet it is this expectation of constant composed perfection that traps them. 
WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP 
Now we need your help to turn our idea into reality. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has only further illuminated the relevance and importance of making films like this, with daily news about rising violence against women as they are trapped at home, access to abortion becoming harder than ever and BAME people being disproportionately affected across the world. Clearly, the themes and issues of this film are as pertinent and under-explored today as they were centuries ago.
Whilst Covid-19 has somewhat affected production plans, we still intend to shoot in September 2020. 
Setting the film in the 18th Century means that the shoot will need meticulous attention to detail. Costume, production design and script supervision will need to be accurate and stylish. Securing the right beach will be integral in achieving the moody, dramatic aesthetic to reflect the highly charged themes in the film. Ensuring accommodation and travel for our crew whilst on location, will also be a significant but essential cost.
All of the donors will, of course, be a huge part of the outcome and we are truly grateful for every single one of you that believes in this project. 
Take a look below to see a breakdown of how our budget will be spent:  

Risks and challenges

Of course there will always be challenges and risks when undertaking a film project. We are shooting on the beach so it will be crucial to risk assess the area thoroughly. We will need very good insurance as well as meticulous preparation. The landscape is a hugely important part of our film; it is almost the third character, with the moody Jurassic coast and crashing waves telling the story in a unique and enticing manner. In this sense, we are committed to caring for the environment and doing all that we possibly can to work responsibly. It is integral to this story and our caring for it will reflect that. The shoot will take place in one location which will minimise the need to travel, thus reducing our carbon footprint. We will transport all cast and crew using public transport. Where a car is necessary, such as for transporting equipment, we will use car-shares.
Learn about accountability on Kickstarter
Questions about this project? Check out the FAQ
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