San Francisco Black Film Festival

We are honored that our latest short film Code Oakland (the first to be released for TEACHED Vol. II) will be playing this weekend at the San Francisco Black Film Festival.  Check out our beautiful film page on the SFBFF site HERE.  Producer/Director Kelly Amis will join other filmmakers for a Q&A after the screening.

For tickets, go HERE. 

Code Oakland Screening Series for Youth!

We're so excited to launch our first youth screening series here in Code Oakland's hometown! The first event is at Impact Hub Oakalnd -- such a cool venue -- and one where we shot part of the film no less!  This will be a youth-centered event to celebrate the stars of Code Oakland, especially the young up-and-coming tech stars featured in the film. Organized in collaboration with Oakland Public Libraries, Youth Radio, Downtown TAY, Black Girls Code, #YesWeCode, Qeyno Labs and other great local organizations, this fun event will include food, entertainment (the local all-girl band, Sisters Keeper!), the short film screening and a taste of the hackathon experience. 

Then, we have two screening events coming up at Oakland Public Libraries, 81st Ave. Branch and Rockridge Branch. Some details on the flier below and more coming soon!

Thanks to the Kapor Center for Social Impact for sponsoring these great events for Oakland youth!

Go HERE to grab free tickets for the Impact Hub screening on May 9th, 6:30 pm. For the library screenings, just show up! We're going to give you an opportunity to see what coding & hackathons are all about -- NO experience required.

Haven't seen the Code Oakland trailer? Watch it HERE.

Baltimore 2015

By Kelly Amis

Last night as protests and riots were unleashed in Baltimore, I avoided Facebook knowing what would be out there. Someone actually tagged me in a ridiculous statement just to start a fight (I didn't take the bait).

These are tragic times -- and they are a consequence of generations (of CENTURIES' worth of an entire people) experiencing the same racism, injustice, belittlement, a million daggers at the soul and body, and the severe, relentless consequences of economic opportunity inequality (which I think is worse in a society when there is SO much wealth and so little concern for how anyone makes it -- for example, using loopholes and placing your "headquarters" offshore to avoid paying taxes. That's also looting, but it impacts everyone, everywhere.) 

I am GRATEFUL that I was teaching in South Central during the 1992 riots, because I knew the reality of what was happening there every day (though the media only focused on the Rodney King verdict, which was the match that lit the kindling): behind every insane story we hear on the news, like the King beating and now the Freddie Gray murder, there are a million big to small injustices we the general public doesn't hear about. It is tragic that we are still seeing this, but the underlying causes haven't changes (maybe they've even gotten worse). 

Where does anger go when it must be swallowed for so long? I don't promote violence. But this is a reaction to violence, too.

 

deadCenter Film Festival

We're excited to be going back to Oklahoma's deadCENTER Film Festival, where we screened our first film, The Path to Prison, to a wonderful audience of indie filmmakers (and indie film lovers). It's run by great people who are committed to art and social justice.

It's interesting to consider the importance of films that bring issues of race equality to the forefront, especially with some of the news coming from Oklahoma in recent months, where a fraternity was exposed for its deep-seated culture of racism (fortunately caught on camera). It makes one wonder, how far away is "history"?

It was in Okahoma where George McLaurin, a black teacher, was admitted to Oklahoma's school of Education, but only under Jim Crow laws, meaning he had to sit in a segregated smaller classroom, work in a segregated private space of the library, and only eat in the cafeteria during designated times when white students weren't present. In 1950, two years later, his case was argued in front of the Supreme Court in George W. McLauren v. Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education, where this segregation was proven unconstitutional.  But as we all know, changing laws and changing hearts and minds are very different things.

We look forward to bringing Code Oakland to Oklahoma and having some of the candid conversations with audiences that TEACHED is all about. For screening details, go to:   http://www.deadcenterfilm.org/

What would you do?

Have you ever heard a white person say something like: slavery is over, why don't blacks ____ (fill in the blank)? I wonder the opposite: how does anyone continue to have spirit, strength and hope in a country where this story can happen (and where Trayvon can happen, and Walter Scott can happen, and millions and millions of stories known or unknown to the public can happen...over centuries)?

I know. I talk about this a lot. It's because I have had the honor of teaching and working in black communities (not to mention being "adopted" by my second family in DC) but also because I know HISTORY. On the black-white issue, we have comparisons to make to South Africa's apartheid, but another comparison we need more people to see has to do with Germany and the Holocaust. Michelle Alexander calls what is happening to black men in America a "silent holocaust," and I agree. (Read her book The New Jim Crow if you haven't).

The important question is, I think: if you could go back to Germany in the 1930s, recognizing what was happening around you (or to you), what would you do? Today is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. what a good day to reflect on history and change the future.

What will you do?

Kelly

Here's the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/15/closing-the-book-on-jon-burge-chicago-cop-accused-of-brutally-torturing-african-american-suspects/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3

Yom HaShoah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_HaShoah