Julie Dash, Award winning Filmmaker moderates a screening and dialog of African American Women Filmmakers.
The Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center (BHERC) presents: the 14th Annual Sistas Are Doin’ It For Themselves: See Their Images… Hear Their Stories… Saturday, April 21, 2007 from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. A Filmmaker Showcase and Discussion at Raleigh Studios, 5300 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, CA (Melrose & Van Ness / across from Paramount Studios). To RSVP - 323/957-4747. The cost is only $10.00.

Award winning writer, director, producer, JULIE DASH, will moderate the BHERC event with an open dialogue between the filmmakers and the audience after the screening. These Sistas’ are determined to tell our stories and change the way the world views Black Cinema. Filmmakers and their films include: Numa Perrier (Julie); Antonia March and Jacqueline McKinley (Oxtails); K. Marie Walters (A Different Light); Dani Dixon (In Conflict with Kismet); Rachel Benjamin (The Missing Peace); and Rae Shaw (Soap and Roses). These films cover a vast array of topics, human interest stories to historical and sometimes go beyond our national borders. It remains interesting how very diverse these films end up being; not only in their story lines but in the cast and crew of the film teams themselves.

“We are proud of this year’s sistas... and the diversity of films that will be screened at the showcase,” stated Program Director, Ralph Scott. “Sistas... is a very special showcase that has over time proven to be a breeding ground for inspiration, networking and future filmmaking teams. It is a moment that the filmmakers, moderator and audience will cherish for a lifetime.”

The Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center was formed in 1996 as a non-profit organization designed to advocate, educate, research, develop and preserve the history, as well as the future of Blacks in film and television. The BHERC produces, organizes and funds diverse cultural art, film and theater projects in order to capitalize on our rich foundation established in Hollywood. We not only promote more African Americans as artists, but have begun a “New Era” in the documentation of African American images.
For event information contact Program Director Ralph Scott at (310) 284-3170. For additional information visit www.BHERC.org. Tickets are $10. Ample street parking is available (or parking on the lot is $5.00).
# # #


MEET THE FILMMAKERS

MODERATOR


JULIE DASH – Writer / Director / Producer
Julie Dash was born and raised in New York City; she has toured nationally and internationally with her work, and she has received numerous awards since embarking on her film career. Her critically acclaimed short film “Illusions”, a drama set in Hollywood 1942, won the 1989 Jury Prize for Best Film of the Decade, awarded by the Black Filmmakers Foundation. With the debut of “Daughters of the Dust” in January 1992, Julie Dash became the first African American woman to have a full-length general theatrical release in the United States.
Ms. Dash earned her M.F.A. in Film & Television production at UCLA; received her B.A. in Film Production from CCNY, and she was also a Fellow at the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies; the AFI conservatory at Greystone Mansion.
Her work as a Film Director includes “Brothers of the Borderland”, “Love Song”, “Incognito” as well as the NAACP Image Award winning CBS Network Television Movie, “The Rosa Parks Story.” She was also nominated for her Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and she became the first African American woman nominated in the category of Primetime Movies Made for Television at The Directors Guild of America.
This March 2007 Ms. Dash received the Life Time Achievement Award from the Images of Black Women Film Festival in the UK.
JUDI – 9 Min.
Judi is the provocative portrayal of a desperately ill woman. Through the mind of her daughter/caretaker we see and experience the disturbing elements of their relationship to each other and the disease. A true story, based on a series of memories.

NUMA PERRIER – Writer / Director
After a short stint playing Cleopatra at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace Numa Perrier made her way to LA alone at the tender age of 19. Accustomed to being in front of the camera it took some years before she discovered her capacity to express her life experiences and curiosities behind the lens. Her directorial debut “Judi: A series of Memories” deals with the anguish between mother and daughter as they face mortality and addiction. She is also the director of a handful of experimental vignettes and was hired to write and produce her first feature film “Noelles Savior ”. Numa is currently in post-production on her feature film debut “Querida Antonia” the life story of a refugee from El Salvador.

OXTAILS – 21 Min.
Xavier wants to avoid eating his girlfriend’s food because he fears she will put “roots” on him. While hanging out at the local bar, his friends lend him support and give a more rational view of the myth of “roots”. This is a comedy for anyone who believes in love with a little added help. Oxtails redefines the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.




ANTONIA MARCH – Co-Writer / Co Director ~ JACQUELINE MCKINLEY – Co-Writer / Co Director
Antonia March and Jacqueline McKinley have been a writing team since 1998. The women have made the rounds as writer’s assistants on almost every show taped in New York; from “The Apollo Comedy Hour” to “Cosby”. March & McKinley moved to Los Angeles to begin a staff-writing job on the WB’s “Smart Guy”. They wrote for the two final seasons of “The Bernie Mac Show” on the FOX Network, and are currently Co-Producers on “ALL OF US” for the CW Network.


A DIFFERENT LIGHT – 19 Min.
Misty and Jamal Law Fell in love, got married, and on the outside seemed like the perfect couple. When Jamal loses his job, Misty's support of her husband is misconstrued. At this moment their love for each other is put to the final test. Some wounds heal… others last forever.





K. MARIE WALTERS – Director / Producer
ALAN C. BEARD - Writer
A native of Nashville, K. Marie is a 2002 graduate of Tennessee State University where she earned a degree in Theater. After graduation, K. Marie moved to New York City to work with Chris Blackwell’s Palm Pictures. Upon finishing her stint in the big apple she moved to Los Angeles to begin her career in film. She has since worked with 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Pictures. K. Marie produced the films Black Rose, 3 Stories Deep, In Time (2005 Sundance Official Selection) and Without You, in which she wrote, directed and produced. K. Marie received her Masters in Screenwriting from California State University, Northridge in 2005. K. Marie currently works in Visual Effects and Feature Production at Walt Disney Pictures.


IN CONFLICT WITH KISMET – 13 Min.
One afternoon, a man confronts the woman who changed the course of his life some twenty years ago. After all this time, they still disagree about who was right. He wants to believe that he was. She has to believe that he wasn’t.






DANI DIXON – Writer / Director
Dani is a native New Yorker. In college, within her Government Concentration, she focused on post-colonial African nations. In high school, Dani was a dance major, an art she continued as a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dance Company. While in college Dani was also the Executive Director of the C.I.R. Theater Company, an educational theater troupe that toured all along the East Coast. Since arriving in Los Angeles Dani has written several scripts for screen and stage. In her spare time, Dani fundraises for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Her latest endeavor has her diving into the world of comics, as creator, writer and publisher.

THE MISSING PEACE – 23 Min.
The Missing Peace is a rites of passage tale about a 14-year-old girl, Larmort, whose name in English means death. She lives in a small village with her weary but wise grandmother, outside of the capital Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. It is 1991 and a coup has just occurred leaving the country in turmoil. Larmort and her grandmother rent a room to Emilie, a Haitian-American journalist, who solicits Larmort’s help in finding her missing mother. The Missing Peace is an adaptation of a short story from the book “Krik Krak?” by noted Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat.

RACHEL BENJAMIN – Writer / Director
Rachel began her film studies at Boston College, with an emphasis in film theory. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications. It is there her interest began to grow for social issues in the black community. Rachel Benjamin is a recent graduate from the film school, Columbia College Chicago where she received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Film and Video.

The Missing Peace is Rachel Benjamin’s fifth narrative short film, and has worked on various feature films such as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Barbershop I, and Spiderman II. Ms. Benjamin is currently working on the feature script adaptation of the novel Breathe, Eyes, Memory, featured on the Oprah Winfrey book club.


SOAP AND ROSES – 33 Min.
Raymond is a good-natured janitor who works at a local supermarket and who in his off-hours volunteers at a community arts center assisting Julissa, a young idealistic artist. When he suddenly loses his job, this sparks a series of disconcerting episodes in Raymond’s life, and he finds himself struggling to find solace in a world that demeans and rejects him. Finally when it seems there is nowhere he can turn, he reacts by striking out at the person he most admires; and thus begins Raymond’s journey to resolve the consequences of an act he cannot reconcile.

RAE SHAW – Writer / Director
A recipient of the 2007 FRANCIS E WILLIAMS ARTIST GRANT, 2005 Guy Hanks and Marvin Miller Screenwriting Fellowship and Delaware Division of the Arts 2005 Emerging Artists Fellowship, Rae Shaw is a writer director of dramatic narratives for television and feature films. A Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow at the University of Chicago and a graduate of the University of Miami Motion Pictures MFA Program, Rae Shaw was a 2001 recipient of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Grant which funded production of her film short “soap and roses,” shot on location in Chicago.