Let’sstart with your work screening films for local festivals.
I help them makeconscious choices about which of the available films would be best for the cityof Milwaukee. Istarted in 2005 when the Milwaukee International Film Festival asked me toscreen shorts, then Midwest features, thenworld cinema. In 2008 it wasdiscontinued. Now I’m back on the world cinema committee. That’s not what it’scalled, but that’s the idea.
Whydid they come to you?
I was involved in filmprogramming for the UWM Union Cinema, and independently. Eventually I’d like tomake films. After my B.F.A. in filmproduction from UWM, I decided to pursue my studies to get a more comprehensiveunderstanding of not only what films exist from throughout the AfricanDiaspora, but how those stories are told and how historical moments inform thatstorytelling.
My master’s thesis is onthe films of Julie Dash. She looks at black women in historical contexts. Daughters of the Dust from 1991 is abouta family of Gullah people from South Carolina moving to the mainland, while the matriarchtries to make sure the ancestral African traditions stay with them as theytravel away. Her short film Illusionsis about a light-skinned black woman who uses her ability to pass as white inher fight on behalf of African Americans. Dash’s work was my first opportunityto immerse myself in black independent cinema.
Now I’m writing mydissertation on Charles Burnett, who was, along with Dash, part of the L.A.Rebellion, a collective of African and African-American film students at UCLAin the ’60s, the first known generation of black film students. They looked atworking-class families or people struggling with welfare orunemploymentindividual stories and perspectives; it’s not monolithictocounter the dominant images of the blaxploitation movies, to show that otherstories of black people could be told on screen.
You’vealso organized poetry events all over the city.
I helped found severalthat continue. One is “Lyrical Sanctuary,” a free, open-mic poetry/spoken-wordseries on the second Wednesday of every month at UWM’s Alumni Union FiresideLounge from 7-10 p.m. We get a good balance of people from all over the city.Show up, sign up and do your thing when they call your name.
