Transitions...to a filmmaker

Lately I've been all over the place with my goal of becoming a filmmaker. I've done a bad job of keeping y'all in the loop. Right now, as most of you know, I'm thinking about Law School. I can't really explain when or why I thought this would be a good idea. It was like a seed of a thought that kept growing in my mind and then one day, I said it out loud.

Once you say something out loud, it becomes real...

I've been interning with a company called Kartemquin Films. They are known for the film Hoop Dreams. Thanks to them I have the opportunity to meet up with an entertainment lawyer to get a closer look at what they do. I want to go about this in a careful and thorough way.

Kartemquin also let me borrow some of their equipment to shoot (hopefully) my first feature documentary film. THIS.IS.THE.REAL.TEST.

I have always been interested in my family's history, mostly because it has seemed so out of reach. My grandparents on both my mom and dad's side died when I was very young. I can't help but feel a certain emptiness. (I wont go into that right now). ANYWAY, I decided to do a documentary about black family secrets in the context of the Great Migration. I lost my grandparents before I could hear their stories, so I want to capture the stories of the older generations before we lose them forever. When I tried to get my grandmother to talk about her parents and where she was from, she would blow me off. She didn't want to go there...ever. It was too painful. It's super ambitious to dig for this type of information...almost too ambitious...but somehow I always do this to myself.

I filmed this project for the first time over the Thanksgiving holiday. I already feel overwhelmed. One of the mothers of my church agreed to be a part of the project. She was born in 1932. I hadn't prepared any questions for her. At this point, I don't even know what to ask. But even with the short, fragmented stories that she began to tell me about life in a small town near Jackson, Tennessee. I watched her as she relived these moments. She talked about picking cotton as a 6 year old girl and sneaking to eat strawberries while working in the heat of summer. She told me that her mom died when she was 11 and her sister took care of them, because her dad was in the streets. Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me about her uncle who was murdered for the crime of talking to a white woman. I started to ask myself if I was wrong for making her go through this. She hadn't told her grandkids any of these stories. She said that kids nowadays don't understand. I told her that I want to try to understand...


morganelisej