On the Road to FESPACO

I remember hearing about FESPACO, the largest African Film Festival and African Film Market, when I was in college and was cutting my first 16mm film, Crossing Holy Waters, on Taale Rosselini's Steinbeck flatbed because the ones at school were overbooked. He had worked in Burkina Faso in the Peace Corps, and had made several beautiful films out there. He had an award from FESPACO that was a bronze baobab tree, and right away, I decided I would have to be in the festival in the near future. Well, it's taken me 16 years, but it's going down. I submitted my Ethiopian Film, The Seed, as a work in progress and got the invitation to the festival a month ago, complete with airfare and expenses taken care of. Because of a technical problem with my film (for your filmmakers, I shot with a Panasonic AG-HVX200 in 24pn mode mini dv, and digitized it at 24 frames a second instead of using the 3:2 2:3 pulldown) I had to recut my film, using my old edit as a map, but eyeballing each shot to match the previous selection. I moved into my editing studio in Dumbo and grinded 18 hour days for the last ten days straight, with the crecendo of pulling in mi bredren Hisham Haj Omar to come out and iron out the last minutiae as we convert the film to PAL for the festival.
The process has had me thinking a lot about the journey this film took me on. It started in 2007. I went to Ethiopia to do a documentary on the Revolution of 1974 as research to enable me to write a script on the subject told from a beaurocrat's 11 year old daugher, a lion in the palace, a student activist in the Ethiopian Student Movement, a repatriated Rasta from Jamaica living in Shashemene, and a guard assigned to watch Emporer Haile Sellassie I during his house arrest. I was spending a lot of time at Addis Abeba University interviewing professors who were instrumental in the Ethiopian Student movement and stumbled on the story of priests in Axum who had deciphered heirogliphics that prophecized that the oncoming millennium would be the beginning of a golden age, a renaissance where the oppressive and destructive forces on earth will be destroyed. I wanted to go to Axum and interview them, but was low on funds. Seeing all the homeless youth in the streets made me want to make a film that could benefit them by establishing a foundation to help get them off the streets and into boarding schools. One day I looked into the eyes of a little boy selling napkins, and I saw a sage looking back at me... and that was the birth of idea for The Seed.
So here I am, been awake for he last 27 hours and the film is in the final process of PAL conversion from NTSC. I will update with stories from Burkina Faso as it all goes down.
perfectlove
jbee

Black President! Brooklyn celebrates the Obama victory

"Black President!" the first words that leave my mouth as i walk down the stairs to my apartment building. "Black President! Yes, I. Can't hold us back no more..." my neighbor chimes in, and the walk to the subway was more and more affirmation, celebration and jubilation that morning of November 5, 2008... the day after Barak Obama won the Presidential election. The morning of election day, i got up and voted at the elementary school down the street from me in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY. The line was very long, a two hour wait til i hit the polls. But those two hours flew by, mainly because of the folks in line with me, our discussions, our excitement. Mind you, i was steadily, the one reminding folks that we had just watched two fixed presidential elections. i had spent time in other countries with obvious election tampering, Ethiopia and Kenya, and was starting to feel like democracy was never intended to be a reality that actually empowered people to choose elected officials. i'm also not delusional about politrix in the united states of america... i know that we basically live in an oligarchy, a country controlled by multi national corporations, a country that doesn't even have sovereignty of our currency... still, seeing a black man win the presidency cultivated a very powerful sense of victory. My bredren Taagen told me that some Rastas in Jamaica are calling Obama the Antichrist... some other mystics see him as a celestial being... some call him black Illuminati... or just straight up Illuminati... well... time will tell. I feel that his heart is in the right place. It felt good to me to vote for him. I feel like it's an affirmation that we are entering the renaissance. These four years leading up to 2012 have been prophesized as being the years that open the door to the golden age. the age when babylon shall fall. Who knows what monumental changes will have to happen for us to see that kind of movement of liberation, but I know we all are preparing ourselves, even if subconsciously.
So, on election day, after editing a grants video for Project Morry, an inner city youth summer camp with a year round scholastic support program, i grabbed my camera and went to four parties to document the historic night. i knew the power elite had chosen Obama to be the face of the nation during this time, knew he'd "win" the election, and really wanted to hear from my fellow Brooklyn renaissance folks what they were going through as it happened. the result is Brooklyn Obama, the video at the top of the page.
The Obamaized Fela Anikulapo Kuti image was created by Dwayne Rogers. You can get this image on a tee shirt or poster at http://www.dwaynerodgers.com/blackpresident/ and read an interview of how he came up with the idea at Okayplayer. I really love the image, one because it celebrates one of my greatest heroes, Fela Kuti, and two because it brings the revolutionary undertones to having a black president. One who will hopefully stand for Truth and Justice.
Sam Cooke is singing A Change Is Going to Come from the Ancestor realm... Let's make it happen!

The Woman Inside Prince is Jack Davey

The last interview I saw of Prince he was talking to Barbara Walters. He was sitting next to his young wife on a white couch. He was speaking very quietly, and said that they had news. He said that they had two personalities, and the new personality was a woman. His wife nodded, that indeed there was a woman inside of him. It wasn't alarming, the brotha wears thongs and lace n eye make up n shit, but I didn't know how that was going to play out. Prince is a musical genius. I'm saying that in the tone that Eddie Murphy used to say brothas would roll up on him and threaten to kick his ass for impersonating Stevie Wonder saying, "Stevie a musical gene yessss!" After the interview came out, i think it was like 1997, not much changed. He still made his own eclectic funk. But what i hadn't realized was that the woman inside of him was a walking, breathing entity. Her name is Jack Davey of J Davey.
http://www.myspace.com/jdavey
I was at the show on August 20, 2008, at S.O.B.'s in lower Manhattan, and let me tell you... she ripped it. The band was tight and the beats were massive. And i was given a feeling that i hadn't experienced since i saw Prince in 1984 at the Frank Erwin Special Event Center, Austin, Texas. You see, i was a ticket scalper when i was 14. That means i always had tickets, and often would use the phattest tix for myself. For prince i brought my lil girlfriend wearing a lace glove and Purple Rain shirt to the 8th row and she caught a rose that Prince had kissed and thrown out to the audience. I had a feeling at that moment that i was a part of something important musically, culturally, historically... Jack Davey gave me that feeling as well. She approaches music with the same spontaneous brink of explosion that Prince does. The vibe is one of urgency. It's the primal feeling of procreation for survival. It's a compulsion that involves fight or flight or impregnate... i felt neuro transmissions to my knees to move. My senses became more alert, like a panther's. She bad, yo!
J Davey are representative of the Black New Wave of a mix of Hip Hop, Afro Punk, Electronica, Psychedelic Groves, Dub, and Funk. It's party music as well as music of liberation. It's raw sex and emancipation. Cop her latest album, it's knocking. But be careful, it has fertility powers, so if you're not trying to conceive, be warned.

"Let's Stay Together" shooting diary 2: Memphis and Al Green

It's a long ride to Memphis from Brooklyn. About 17 hours, yo. And it's the kind of road that sends the mind deep within, especially as my cinematographer and actor were passed out cold 90% of the ride, and i was the only one driving. I was on a mission. A mission that had started a week before. A mission to meet Al Green.
I had gone to Al Green's sound check in Atlantic City, on a mission to reach out to him and tell him about the film. I brought my homey Malik, who's shooting when i'm in front of the camera, put on some nice duds, and we walked in like we belonged there. "Are you performing tonight?" one of the House of Blues staff asks.
"Not tonight," I said.
"Oh, you're with the band?" he wondered, looking at the camera bag.
"That's right," I said, and he pointed us to the back stage.
"You can get your back stage passes through those doors and to the left."
We waltzed back stage and hung out in a dressing room while I planned the next move. Al wasn't doing his sound check, I could tell it was someone else on the mic. After a few songs, we ventured out to investigate the other dressing rooms. I asked a sound tech if Al Green was in the larger dressing room, and he told me he was up in his hotel room.
"But his daughter is here, would you like to talk to her?" "
"Yeah, tell her joshua bee alafia is here."
He disappeared into the dressing room and came back to open the door to let us in. Deborah Green sat with the other background singer, filling envelopes with the bands pay for the night. She was very warm, and I was very polite. I told her what i was doing, that i wanted to use her father's music in my film, and told her how his new album creates an enchantment on the African American families in crisis and brings folks together in my film, in a very magical realism way. The film pitch is so bizarre, that i never feel like folks actually understand what i'm going for, but she was encouraging and took the little synopsis and DVD of Cubamor i gave her and said she'd give it to her father.
"I'm going to be in Memphis next week, are y'all going to be there?" I asked, having seen a gap in their tour dates on the website and hoping that Rev. Green would go back to his church that Sunday to give service.
"Well, I won't, but my Father will." She said, and encouraged me to go to the church.
That's how I came to be driving 1100 miles with a cinematographer and an actor to make my film and meet one of my favorite recording artists. Two days before the trip, a cinematographer friend that i've never worked with bailed on me because he pulled a paid gig and i was trying to bring him on as a favor, since my budget is too hurting to pay my technicians or actors as of yet. I ended up calling a young student i had met in the EVC teen film making program named Ariel. Aicha was coming with us three days before she left for a month in Switzerland.
We Arrived in Memphis at about 5:30 in the morning. The brotha working the desk at the hotel was real nice and talked about his city a little while i checked in. We crashed for about four hours, then bounced to church, disoriented as i looked at the clock not knowing we had crossed time zones. When we got to the Full Gospel Tabernacle, the place was already bumping. The drummer was kicking the kick hard, i felt it in my chest immediately. The music was extremely on point, and another singer was singing lead with a fury and a passion that made all the road fatigue leave my body. I spent most half the time standing and clapping as the choir lit it up. Al was seated initially, letting some other singers do their thing, then he stood, wrecked it, and gave a beautiful sermon that focused on being loving and tolerant to one another. It was Aicha's first time in church, as she is an agnostic, and i kept looking at her to watch her soak it all in. Rev. Green asked new comers to say where they came from and we heard responses from all over; South Africa, Kenya, Italy, Ireland, Indiana, and of course i had to represent Brooklyn! to the fullest. Toward the end, Rev. Green asked us all to tell the folks sitting next to us, "I love you," and it was actually very profound telling young Ariel and Aicha that i loved them. A great way to start a shoot. After the service, i approached the drummer and told him i wanted to meet with Rev. Green about a film i was shooting in New York. He was a cool brotha and listened to my short pitch, then went back stage to see if Rev. Green would entertain us, but he had already left as he usually does. He along with some other folks in the choir encouraged us to come the next day in the morning to see if we could get a sitdown. We left and ate a soul food feast then started shooting. Part of the mission was getting the hotel scenes knocked out, which we did steadily. We did the scene where Aicha's character gets pregnant... which is always kind of awkward, and got most of the romance scenes between her and i out of the way.
The next day we rushed Aicha to the airport and then went to see if the Rev. would grant us a meeting, interview, whatever we could get. We waited for about a half an hour at the church until his secretary came to tell us he wasn't giving interviews.
"That's alright, I really came here to get his blessing more than an interview. I want to just sit and meet with him, briefly."
"You came all the way from New York, just to get Rev. Green's blessing?" She said, somewhat shocked.
"Yes."
"Okay, let me give him another call and see if he'll just give you his blessing." She said, one of the sweetest folks you'd ever want to meet. "He says go ahead up there!" She came back with, genuinely excited because everyone knows how difficult it really is to get a meeting with Rev. Green.
We walked over to Al Green Publishing office. Rev. Green sat writing checks for his band, gave us both a quick handshake and smile and told us to sit down.
"Okay, let's hear it." he said, looking down at the check he was writing.
"Let me begin by saying it's a real honor to meet you, Rev. Green..." i started, then launched in to a summery of my film and how i thought it was only right to get his permission to reference him and that if we got distribution, the distributor would come to pay the royalties for the music we use in the film.
He began by telling me he wasn't giving interviews, that he had sent Tavis Smiley and his crew home packing the previous week as they showed up trying to shoot in his church. He spoke of not wanting somebody to do a bio picture on him or anything of that nature. As i clarified i just wanted to use his music, he ended up saying.
"You do you, and I'm going to do Al Green. Go on and make your movie."
He then shook our hands and we said goodbye. I felt like it was a step in the right direction, but I was a little disappointed he hadn't really heard what i wanted to do in terms of him and my film, the message i was going for.
It was a very long ride back to Brooklyn, but my initial disappointment faded into a gratitude that he had said the words,
"Make your film."
And that's exactly what i intend to do.

"Let's Stay Together" Shooting Diary

saturday, june 21, 2008

i woke up at 10 min. to 8am with butterflies in my stomach today.  and then had diarrhea.  sorry if that's t.m.i. but, it's real.  it took me back to college, where i used to always get it before a theatre performance... no matter what... didn't matter how well i knew my lines, how confident i was...  i'd always have to completely clear my gut before getting on stage.  bizarre...  so today was a flash from the past.  maybe it's because i haven't acted for a while... i guess it's been about a year, my last efforts being my cameo in The Seed, the film i shot in Ethiopia... coming soon. (still working on the soundtrack.)  So, the day started with some anxiety.  I was at Adia's crib last night until 2:30am shooting her and ase dance company sewing their Oshun dresses and talking about the fate of the company for the ongoing Ase Dance Theatre Collective documentary, or for posterity... we'll see what happens.  I rolled out and picked up my brotha Jonny Sheehan, one of my oldest friends, since we were 17, n shit...  He agreed to work the camera while i'm in front of it.  We picked up Aicha Cisse, my lead, and headed to Grand Army Plaza Water Fountain, at prospect park in Brooklyn.  Aicha was wearing a yellow dress, which was a concern if the Oshun dancers came too yellow, but it all worked out.  We ran through the lines, and i felt reassured that i had cast the first time actress, because she has a real natural feel for the role.  Adia Whitaker and her crew showed up right as we felt confident we had the scene blocked and ready.  The sun was in the wrong place... right over head, but folks had other commitments, so we had to make due.  it was the first time i've used these new 32gig P2 cards, and there was a little anxiety there too.  the footage is lush...  can't wait to see how it projects.  the pacing went well.  we fought with traffic and fountain noises a little at first, but got through. it helps that Jonny worked as a sound man for years, since we had no sound recordist... i'm telling you, this is my no budget film that couldn't wait.  Aicha is studying at Colombia U, and is overwhelmed during the school year, and some of my actors are about to turn SAG, so this was my last chance to shoot a no budget, non SAG film with this group of folks.  Once we shot the scene where my character meets Aicha's character for the first time on a salty note... i picked up the camera as Jonny had to go take his son to a birthday party.  I shot the Oshun Dancers dancing beside the fountain, as tourists took photos with their camera phones and digital cameras and the crescendo was when Adia broke out the honey and got really Ye Ye O with honey pouring all over them while they danced and carried on.  As we ended the scene, Adia put some honey on my cheeks that i latter would accidentally smear on women's cheeks as i kissed them hello.

"Let's Stay Together" has begun.  Now it's about getting Al Green... He plays Carnegie Hall on Friday, and i'm on a mission to get him on camera... 

Cuba in Transition Dialogos Interview Spring 2008

Repatriation Afrika

Repatriation Afrika Now
By joshua bee alafia

I’m writing from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I begin with that reference because it is here that we will unite this continent… Afrika the bountiful. Afrika the beautiful. Afrika, the salvation of humanity. The ancient Auximites prophesized that the year 2000 would herald the golden age… the end of the 3000-year curse upon the land. Perhaps bringing the Arc of the Covenant brought with it it’s negative energy… 3000 years of strife and unbalance. King Haile Selassie invited the displaced Afrikans of the Diaspora to return home to Ethiopia… he said there’s enough room here for all of us. I have internalized that call, the prophecy, and the sentiment that this is the launch pad of the Golden Age of Redemption. I am inviting you to join me. Afrika has been drained of human resources through the slave trade and economically motivated migration of trained professionals. It’s time to come back and give to Afrika. It’s time to unite the prodigal children with their place of origin. Repatriate now!
It is time to rethink the dominant system of economy. It is now based on a Eurocentric standard of gold as precious, gold as the base of economy. This is absurd. It means that whichever groups of people’s rape, pillage, and destruction, hording as much gold as possible, prosper. It is a standard based on destruction. As is other pillars of the current global system: the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and the pharmaceutical industrial complex. Thus war, imprisonment, and sickness are the most profitable industries to engage the economy. These coupled with alcohol, tobacco, and petrochemical industry. Destruction layered upon destruction. This is completely dysfunctional and ridiculous. The age of destruction has run its course and its time has finished. Wisdom is better than silver and gold.
In the New Millennium, we must look engage a new system of commerce that reinforces positive contributions to society and the planet as a whole. Each soul shall be born with a credit that will subsidize their childhood through student years’ necessities upon which they accumulate excess with positive actions. When you look at money, it really represents time and energy spent. Income is based upon technical skills that earn different sums of money based on years spent in training and function in generating wealth. Income shall be based upon time and energy spent in symbiosis with the socio-planetary effect of those actions. Thus we usher in an age where teachers will be redeemed for the good of their work instead of being underpaid and eventually driven from the profession due to burnout. This is the age where we invest in the wellbeing of our youth to ensure a strong society. Wealth is really contingent upon quality of life as opposed to material accumulation.
I’m a freelance filmmaker who generates relatively low income for a man my age with my education living in the USA, but I am rich in experience and quality of life due to my traveling around the world and the fact that I love what I do. Under the new system, the socio political effects of my works will be measured and my pay will be based upon how the works fall positively upon society; weather for mere entertainment or potential positive progressively transformative effect on the culture. A computer program can be created to calculate the value of actions and works.
The Afro, the United States of Afrika’s currency, will lead the planet in redefining what is important, what is valuable. I’ve never bought something gold in my life. Well, actually, I bought some video cables that had some gold connectors… and that’s the height of value I place upon the metal… it’s a good conduit. As we evolve, it’s time to live in accordance with the constant reinforcing of positive actions upon the planet. I’m calling out to my folks in the Diaspora to heed the call of your destiny… come reunite Afrika. Come redeem our fallen, come break our mental shackles, come decolonize, come realize the bounty that is our home… Afrika the free. Come enforce the shift from destruction to social upliftment, earth affirming, peace, building and cultivation.
3-17-98