Watch S&A Filmmaker Challenge Winner “Black Swan Theory” By Nikyatu Jusu Before It Disappears!

By Tambay, on February 16th, 2011

CLICK ON PHOTO BELOW TO VIEW VIDEO

Here it is folks! The completed 1st film of the Shadow And Act Filmmaker Challenge series, brought to you by Shadow And Act Films LLC; Nikyatu Jusu’s Black Swan Theory. To rehash briefly, we give a filmmaker $3,000 cash, based on a winning script that they submit; they then go off to make the short film with the money.

It’ll be online until Friday at midnight EST, and we’re taking it offline after that, in consideration of potential release/distribution dates. So, if you haven’t seen it, or just want to see it again, I suggest you do so before it disappears!

Synopsis: A psychiatric casualty of war, recently returned to the US, Sonya’s imagined sense of normalcy crumbles around her; she must hunt or become the hunted.  

CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE to play the 12-minute film. I certainly expect you’re viewing this with a broadband connection… NOTE: if playback is choppy, I suggest you pause playback, and give it a minute or two head-start to load, and then play.

And below, you’ll find a repost of my original announcement anointing Nikyatu the winner. It gives you some background on the filmmaker, as well as the impetus and backstory for Black Swan Theory.

 

If you’re new here, click HERE to catch up… otherwise read on…

We’ve featured Nikyatu’s work on this blog previously; she was also on our 2010 Shadow And Act Black Filmmakers To Watch list. But here’s a little more about her, in her own words: “Originally bred in Atlanta, Georgia to Sierra Leonean parents, Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu is an MFA candidate at New York University’s graduate film program. Her second short film, African Booty Scratcher garnered her a Director’s Guild Honorable Mention, HBO Short Film Award and JT3 Artist Award. Nikyatu is currently touring the festival circuit with her thesis film, Say Grace Before Drowning; the screenplay alone earned her a Spike Lee Scholarship and a Princess Grace Foundation-US Graduate Film Scholarship. Because she has a preoccupation with foreigners, damaged women and the contradictory nature of humanity, these themes presently permeate her work.”

And here Nikyatu gives a little more backstory to the script, stating: “I’m always intrigued with black women in settings that are typically not seen as conducive to their presence: for instance a former US Soldier struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  We rarely, if ever, hear about the experiences of black women who have fought for this country and I thought it would be interesting to explore such a character in the context of an attempted return to normalcy–when normalcy is no longer definable.  I hope to convey a woman battling both her own private demons and the demons of war.  I’m also very influenced by graphic novels and have been craving a black female heroine.“

2011 Tusculum Review Fiction Contest

 

The 2011 Tusculum Review Fiction Prize offers a $1,000 (U.S.) purse and publication.  There is a $15 (U.S.) entry fee, which includes one copy of the vol. 7/2011 edition of the The Tusculum Review and consideration for publication.  We consider all works submitted for publication, but only works with entry fees are considered for the contest.

Submissions must be postmarked by March 15, 2011 in order to be considered.

Each submission is restricted to one short story no more than 30 typed, double-spaced pages in length (use a standard 12-pt. font, please).  All entries must be typed.

Previously published stories, including web publications, are not allowed.  Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if our editors are notified immediately if the work has been accepted elsewhere.

Please send a cover letter with your name, postal address (to where you’d like your review copy sent), phone number, e-mail address, and the title of your work. Please do NOT include your name anywhere on your manuscript.  Those entering more than one submission may designate a gift copy of The Tusculum Review vol. 7/2011.  Please provide the name(s) and address(es) for where you want the journal(s) mailed.

Manuscripts will be numbered, and all author names and information will be removed before the entries are presented to the judges.  In the event that judges do not deem any submissions worthy of the prize, The Tusculum Review reserves the right to extend the call for manuscripts or to cancel the award.

The final judge for this year’s contest will be Aimee Bender.  Family, friends, and current/previous students of the judge, or those with a reciprocal professional relationship with the judge, will be disqualified from the contest.  Submissions will be screened by the staff of The Tusculum Review, and finalists will be forwarded for judging.

All contestants will receive a letter announcing the winner and finalists along with one copy of The Tusculum Review vol. 7/2011.  The winner and finalists will be listed on The Tusculum Review companion website in April 2011.  The new issue will be mailed in May 2011.

Manuscripts will not be returned.

Mark all envelopes: FICTION CONTEST.

Send all work to:

The Tusculum Review
60 Shiloh Road
P.O. Box 5113
Greeneville, Tennessee  37743.

We accept checks and money orders made payable to The Tusculum Review.

For more information, contact the editors at review@tusculum.edu or 423.636.7300 ext. 5285.

 

New South 2011 Contest Guidelines

Poetry Prize
First Place: $1000
Second Place: $250

Prose Prize
First Place: $1000
Second Place: $250

Deadline: All entries must be postmarked or submitted electronically to our online submission manager by March 4, 2011.
Reading Fee: $15.00

To Submit by Post Mail

Each post mail entry must include the following:

1) A check or money order (NO CASH) made payable to Georgia State University for fifteen dollars ($15). Entry fee includes a copy of the Summer 2011 issue, which will contain the winning entries.

2) A cover letter with a 3- to 4-line bio, title(s) of the work submitted, and your name, mailing address, phone number, and email address.

POETRY

• Address poetry submissions to the Poetry Editor.
• Poems must be typed.
• Submit up to three (3) poems per $15 Reading Fee.
• All poems must have name, address, phone, and e-mail appearing on each page.

PROSE

• Address fiction submissions to the Fiction Editor.
• Manuscripts must be typed.
• Include name, address, phone, email, & word count on the first page of the manuscript only.
• Non-fiction is welcomed and encouraged.
• Submit one (1) short story or non-fiction piece per $15 Reading Fee.
• Please limit your submission to 9,000 words.

Send work to the following address:
New South/Writing Contest
Campus Box 1894
Georgia State University
MSC 8R0322 Unit 8
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083

To Submit Online

New South will also accept online submissions for this year's contest. Please visit our page on Tell It Slant to submit.

Each online entry must include the following:

1) A reading fee of fifteen dollars ($15). Entry fee includes a copy of the Summer 2011 issue, which will contain the winning entries.

2) The submitter's contact info, including a mailing address so that we may send a copy of the Summer 2011 issue.

POETRY

• Submit up to three (3) poems per document.

PROSE

• Non-fiction is welcomed and encouraged.
• Submit one (1) short story or non-fiction piece per $15 Reading Fee.
• Please limit your submissions to 9,000 words.

While we take the greatest care in handling your entries, we assume no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts. Only unpublished work considered. Simultaneous submissions considered with notification. All rights revert to author after publication. Current students, staff, and faculty at Georgia State University are not eligible.

New South publishes quality literary art promoting the work of emerging and established writers. New South holds no subject biases. The staff will select the best work regardless of style or genre. The final round of judging will be anonymous (the names will be removed from the manuscripts before the final judges see them).

For questions ONLY (no submissions, please):

new_south@langate.gsu.edu

Submit to the 2010 Gulf Coast Prizes in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction:

The 2011 Gulf Coast Contests, awarding publication and $1,000 each in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction, are now open. Honorable mentions in each category will receive a $250 second prize. Ilya Kaminsky will judge the contest in poetry, Frederick Reiken will judge in fiction, and John D'Agata will judge in nonfiction. Postmark/Online Entry deadline: March 15, 2011. Winners and Honorable Mentions will be announced in May. GUIDELINES:

To enter online (preferred), visit the online submissions manager and be sure to choose "CONTEST: Fiction," "CONTEST: Poetry," or "CONTEST: Nonfiction/Lyric Essay" as your genre. Upload one previously unpublished story or essay (25 double-spaced pages max) or up to five previously unpublished poems (10 pages max). Do not include a cover letter, your name, or contact info of any kind in your uploaded document; please put this information in the "comments" field. Once you've clicked "submit," you will be redirected to PayPal to authorize your $23 online reading fee, which also gets you a one-year subscription. You won't need a PayPal account, only a credit card. Multiple submissions are acceptable, but you must pay the fee for each entry. We'll contact you if there are any problems with your payment; please do not email us to confirm whether payment was received. To enter by mail, send one previously unpublished story or essay (25 double-spaced pages max) or up to five previously unpublished poems (10 pages max) to the address below. Indicate your genre on the outer envelope. Your name and address should appear on the cover letter only. Include a SASE for results. Your $20 postal reading fee, payable to "Gulf Coast," will include a one-year subscription. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Send Postal Entries to: Gulf Coast Prize in [Genre] Department of English University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3013

Surfing Soweto

Monday, January 10th, 2011 by Sihle Mthembu

Florsheim shoes and bow ties, staffriders are something of folklore on the streets of Soweto. Staffriding, otherwise known as train-surfing, began when trains first started ferrying commuters from Soweto to Jozi. More than just a means of showing off, staffriding became a way to outrun the cops after a secret meeting or to avoid being caught without a dompas. Both activists and criminals surfed the tracks as they sought a fast means of escape. Fast forwards fifty years and the culture is alive and well, and just as deadly.  Generations of young, rebellious teenagers have made the pastime their own, and train-surfing has taken an all together different and more dangerous direction from its early days as a way to stick it to the state.

Directed by Sara Blecher (known for producing local TV shows like Zero Tolerance and Bay of Plenty among many others) Surfing Soweto takes us deep into this surprising, Youtube-friendly phenomenon. Developed over three years, the film follows Prince, Lefa and Mzembe. They are Soweto’s ultimate badasses. We see how train surfing quickly morphs from an after school lark for the trio to a burgeoning cult thing they are both proud of and freaked out by. Prince is The Godfather of train surfing in the township – schooling guys on the dangers. He’s a self-declared platinum medalist of the ‘sport’.

This is a community that has changed so much since the Soweto Uprising and now has a new form of youth rebellion, more nihilistic and doomed, that chimes with the blunted Zuma era.
“I wanted to show what’s going on with the youth of Soweto thirty years after that famous uprising. That change is what inspired me,” Blecher says. Train-surfing is a death-game played out by a series of counter-culture anti-heroes trapped in a hopeless situation. No jobs. No future. It’s a punk reaction to being caught without prospects in the rising post-apartheid consumer culture. But Surfing Soweto is not chiefly a political film. It’s more a humanist tale exploring the conditions that drive these kids to casually risk their lives for fun and fame.

We stay with Mzembe as he tries to find his roots, and follow Prince and Lefa as they try to get an education. There are stupendous, edge-of-chair train-surfing montages and vivid real-time interludes of drugs and crime. One of Blecher’s biggest concerns making the film wasn’t whether her subject would be open to the process, but how to develop their trust. The answer was to get the train-surfers to document their own experiences. Turning the camera on their own lives, giving this pungent film a rare immediacy.
“We often thought the guys wouldn’t bring the camera back,” Says Blecher. “We were sure they’d steal it. And having to deal with Mzembe being drunk and Prince being high were real challenges!”

Surfing Soweto is doing the international festival circuit and has already won the Tri-Continental Human Rights prize. Simply getting the film out there has been a victory for both Blecher and the surfers.
“People really love this film,” she says. “Especially the kasi audiences. We really show the reality out there for far too many of our kids. I wish I could take credit for all this, but it’s really about the guys who gave so much of their lives to this film.”

She means it literally. A major talking point for audiences is Lefa’s shocking death. His body is found on a railway line. According to Blecher, Lefa’s death pushed her to get the project done. “It was such a tragedy and it forced us to finish the film. Lefa gave so much to the whole process. There was no way we couldn’t finish. It felt like we had to, so his life meant something.”

Sadly, Surfing Soweto is not yet scheduled for wide release.

Edwidge Danticat

Reads Poems

“Tourist” and “Boat People”

by Felix Morisseau-Leroy

Edwidge Danticat reads the poems “Tourist” and “Boat People” by Felix Morisseau-Leroy (translated from Haitian Creole by Jack Hirschman) at the event Evolution/Revolution, part of the 2009 PEN World Voices Festival.

---

Tourist

Tourist, don’t take my picture
Don’t take my picture, tourist
I’m too ugly
Too dirty
Too skinny
Don’t take my picture, white man
Mr. Eastman won’t be happy
I’m too ugly
Your camera will break
I’m too dirty
Too black
Whites like you won’t be content
I’m too ugly
I’m gonna crack your Kodak
Don’t take my picture, tourist
Leave me be, white man
Don’t take a picture of my burro
My burro’s load’s too heavy
And he’s too small
And he has no food here
Don’t take a picture of my animal
Tourist, don’t take a picture of the house
My house is of straw
Don’t take a picture of my hut
My hut’s made of earth
The house already smashed up
Go shoot a picture of the Palace
Or the Bicentennial grounds
Don’t take a picture of my garden
I have no plow
No truck
No tractor
Don’t take a picture of my tree
Tourist, I’m barefoot
My clothes are torn as well
Poor people don’t look at whites
But look at my hair, tourist
Your Kodak’s not used to my color
Your barber’s not used to my hair
Tourist, don’t take my picture
You don’t understand my position
You don’t understand anything
About my business, tourist
“Gimme fie cents”
And then, be on your way, tourist.

Boat People

We are all in a drowning boat
Happened before at St. Domingue
We are the ones called boat people

We all died long ago
What else can frighten us ?
Let them call us boat people

We fight a long time with poverty
On our islands, the sea, everywhere
We never say we are not boat people

In Africa they chased us with dogs
Chained our feet, piled us on
Who then called us boat people?

Half the cargo perished
The rest sold at Bossal Market
It’s them who call us boat people

We stamp our feet down, the earth shakes
Up to Louisiana, down to Venezuela
Who would come and call us boat people?

A bad season in our country
The hungry dog eats thorns
They didn’t call us boat people yet

We looked for jobs and freedom
And they piled us on again: Cargo—Direct to Miami
They start to call us boat people

We run from the rain at Fort Dimanche
But land in the river at the Krome Detention Center
It’s them who call us boat people

Miami heat eats away our hearts
Chicago cold explodes our stomach
Boat people boat people boat people

Except for the Indians—
What American didn’t get here somehow
But they only want to call us boat people

We don’t bring drugs in our bags
But courage and strength to work
Boat people—Yes, that’s all right, boat people

We don’t come to make trouble
We come with all respect
It’s them who call us boat people

We have no need to yell or scream
But all boat people are equal, the same
All boat people are boat people

One day we’ll stand up, put down our feet
As we did at St. Domingue
They’ll know who these boat people really are

That day, be it Christopher Columbus
Or Henry Kissinger—
They will know us
We who simply call ourselves
People

---

Download the mp3

Our Generation: Land Culture Freedom - review

Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis's documentary examining the state of indigenous rights in Australia offers an insight into years of neglect, ignorance and stereotyping. But it also offers the hope that things could change.

Read a Q&A with Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis
Link to Our Generation photo gallery

• Neil Willis
• Guardian Weekly, Monday 14 February 2011 14.38 GMT
• Article history

Our Generation: Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis's film is a platform for the issue of indigeneous rights in Australia. Photograph: Sinem Saban

 

 

In 2008, Australia's then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to the country's indigenous population for the "indignity and degradation" to which past governments had subjected them. Although "sorry" was only a simple word, Australia's First Peoples, the Aborigines, the indigenous population, hoped the apology would herald a new era of race relations. Sunday 13 February 2011 was the three-year anniversary of Sorry Day, but in the years since Rudd's announcement it seems little has changed.

Our Generation is a documentary feature from Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis looking at the complex issue of indigenous rights in Australia. The pair have not only the knowledge and understanding to tackle subject, they have the necessary sensitivity to extract an informative and affecting film without getting bogged down in emotion. Saban's academic grounding in Aboriginal Studies has been supplemented by 10 years of work with the Aboriginal community who are the main subject of the film, the Yolngu in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, where she worked as a teacher and human rights activist. Curtis has for a decade worked with tribal peoples around the world to protect their culture and ancestral lands.

The plight of the Aborigine of Australia has been an issue since the colonial flag was first hoisted on Botany Bay. While other colonised indigenous people were at least recognised by treaties with their new governors, no such document was signed on the Bay. The problem of recognition has stayed with the Aborigine ever since.

For all their knowledge and passion for their subject, Saban and Curtis do not lose sight of the fact that their film is the conduit through which the argument for indigenous rights is presented. Many of the civil rights leaders interviewed in the film have been bearing the torch of indigenous rights for years, but years of being ignored by both a conservative media and the governments of John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have taken their toll. Our Generation is very much a call to a new generation of Australians, Aborigine or city-dwelling white suburbanite, to relight the torch and carry it forward.

The testimony of the Yolngu is significant for the film. Aside from Saban's personal connection with the community, they are seen by other Aboriginal groups in Australia as the community that has managed to retain most of its culture, traditions and land. The Yolngu remained stubbornly resistant to most forms of colonisation. Crucially, the community did not cede control of its lands to settlers and managed to retain sovereignty – the issue and importance of which runs throughout the film.

There is much to admire about this documentary, least of all the fact that it was made at all. Curtis and Saban relied on donations to get the project off the ground, but the nature of the independent production meant the film-makers had complete editorial control. The airing of the issues contained therein – racial discrimination, funds for community projects in exchange for land rights – are not addressed in the mainstream media nor can they be found on the political agenda. The result is a film that gives those who contributed a sense of participation ownership over the finished product, especially when their names are included in the credits.

Saban says she was inspired by Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine, examining the issue of gun ownership in the US. The advance of the documentary format on to mainstream cinema screens has allowed audiences to familiarise themselves with how to watch them. In the case of Saban, like Moore, the idea is to show all of the facts — not just the soundbites given by media or politicians — in a way that spurs the audience into action. Even after the film-making was finished the pair embarked on a national and international promotion, including talks and events, to continue to raise awareness of their subject.

The film works as a traditional piece of cinema because it uses the same blueprint as a traditional linear narrative. The complex issues are laid out in chronological order, from Botany Bay to the current arguments about interventionism, the approach favoured by John Howard's government, which used the media by playing on stereotypes to whip up a moral panic over child abuse and alcoholism in Aboriginal communities. The main protagonists are also laid out for the audience to see. For example, the missionary's paternalistic approach of assimilation — removing children from their families to live with white families, as seen in the Golden Globe-nominated Rabbit-Proof Fence. Not only is this style easy to follow, it is vital in informing the audience of the history of the subject without browbeating them with something akin to a 74-minute political broadcast.

Interviews with young and old Yolngu people, ranging from community leaders to ordinary grandmothers, allows an intriguing look at a culture that is too often overlooked. The Aborigine communities are short on housing and facilities. Health problems mean that life expectancy is far below that enjoyed by their fellow Australians in the cities. Much of the political action has taken aim at the ills of these communities without examining the cause: the current incompatibility of the traditional Aborigine culture, including a more nomadic existence connected to the land, with the more recent western idea of permanent, city-dwelling society. One of the main demands of this documentary is the need, at the very least, for greater integration of these ideals.

Although the film has an agenda of sorts – to both unite First People communities into one voice and encourage that voice to be both used and heard – its main task is to provide a platform for education and action. On the one hand, the film is used to document the misguided policies of the past. However, the effect of the project is to spur a greater number of people to learn about the issue of indigenous rights and demand action be taken. In a similar way to Saban's experience with Bowling for Columbine, audiences should feel compelled to get involved, speak up and eventually force the issue on to the political agenda.

The subject of indigenous rights is a difficult and complex one for modern Australia. It is nagging problem yet to be tackled in the back of a national consciousness. However, facing up to such a subject may stir up emotions long buried or uncover old resentment, guilt or even shame. To a certain degree Kevin Rudd's apology has completed the hardest part. Now the examination of what went wrong and, more importantly, how best to move forward should be the focus.

You can get more information about the issues raised in the film, and buy your own copy of the documentary by going to the Our Generation website at www.ourgeneration.org.au

‘Who’s Telling Our Story?’

 
Journalism in Africa: Who’s Telling Our Story?

Friday, February 18, 2011
New York University
Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street
Rudin Conference Room

At 5.30pm.

Featuring:
Nassirou Diallo (Committee to Protect Journalists), Ebba Kalondo (Media Institute of Southern Africa), Noel King (The Takeaway, WNYC), Shamira Muhammad (NYU Global Journalism ‘11), Femi Oke (The Takeaway, WNYC), Brooke Silva (Earthchild Production).

Cosponsored by: NYU Africa House and NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute

Via Din Clarke.

How does Cuba do it?

February 15, 2011

by Cheryl LaBash

Cuba practices “medical diplomacy.” The small, poor country not only “exports” doctors to serve needy communities in other countries – Cuban doctors are the backbone of health care in Haiti, for example – but it “imports” poor students of color from other countries to attend medical school in Cuba for free if they promise to return home and practice medicine in a low-income community. To learn more and apply, go to www.ifconews.org/MedicalSchool. And watch the PBS Newshour video posted below that features Pasha Jackson of Oakland, one of 100 U.S. students currently studying medicine in Cuba.

“Cuba has the lowest [infant] mortality rate in the Americas, in spite of the economic blockade imposed against it by the U.S. for more than five decades,” announced Granma newspaper on Jan. 3.

 

Before Cuba’s 1959 revolution ousted the racist, corrupt, U.S.-puppet Batista regime, infant deaths, when recorded, exceeded 60 per 1,000 live births. In 2010, the rate of infant mortality was only 4.5 per 1,000 live births — overall a better and more equally distributed outcome than in the much wealthier U.S.

This is a stark contrast to the huge disparities in infant mortality rates in the U.S.; for example, there are 14.7 deaths per 1,000 live births among African Americans in Mississippi, as reported in the “2010 Mississippi Infant Mortality Report.”

According to Granma, some contributing factors to Cuba’s success are “the political will of the revolutionary government, the high education levels of its population, the vaccination program against 13 diseases and a free universal health system for everyone.”

Ray Suarez reported on PBS Newshour that Cuba’s health achievement also includes a higher life expectancy than the U.S. and costs less — a lot less! “According to the World Health Organization … the average Cuban lives to the age of 78. That’s slightly longer than the life span of the average [U.S. resident]. The cost of health care in Cuba is less than $400 a year per person. In the U.S., the annual tab is almost 20 times higher” (Dec. 21).

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. health care spending amounts to $8,086 per person or 17.6 percent of its gross domestic product (www.cms.gov).

The PBS report points to Cuba’s large number of doctors, its emphasis on preventive care, the growing biotech industry that develops new vaccines and medicines, and free universal education including medical school. But there is more.

Cuba’s socialist economic system eliminates the profit motive that shapes and distorts every aspect of health care in the capitalist U.S. The education of doctors and the distribution of health facilities are planned and organized to meet human needs, not left to the “invisible hand of the market.”

Confronted with $200,000 to $300,000 in education debt, many U.S. medical students must steer toward higher income specialties, making career decisions that — subtly or not — avoid treating uninsured, poor or rural patients where doctors earn less.

Decisions over every aspect of capitalist health care from direct patient care, insurance and hospitals to pharmaceuticals, lab work, research and high-tech tests are all geared to maximizing profits, even increasing the use of these goods or services, whether warranted or not. Medication, surgeries and procedures are even advertised directly to the public to promote sales.

Yet 50 million U.S. residents have no insurance and even insurance doesn’t guarantee affordable, quality or preventive care (The Kaiser Family Foundation, September 2010).

The U.S. health care cost and outcome crisis can be solved. Cuba has proved it.

© 2011 Workers World. This story was originally published Jan. 12, 2011, by Workers World, 55 W. 17th St., New York NY 10011, ww@workers.org, www.workers.org, at http://www.workers.org/2011/world/cuba_0120/.

 

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