Hollywood: Brown Film Festival

Brown mafia in the house! I recently attended a short film festival presented by Brown alumni in Hollywood with a keynote speech by producer and Brown alum Janet Yang, President of the Academy of Motion Pictures.

Of course, I wore my shredded vintage-style Brown University hoodie for the film festival to wear and share my school spirit with pride (I did get four degrees from there, after all). I think my favorite short film was A Cow in the Sky — which had us all in tears. Below is the film’s blurb from the Tribeca Film Festival.

A COW IN THE SKY

C. Fraser Press and Darren Press, USA 2023

In a matter of 12 minutes, the directors creatively unpack a very tragic story that results into one of triumph and hope based on true events in A COW IN THE SKY. Their usage of beautiful animation along with archival material gives credence to an amazing narrative.

In 1988, an Ethiopian college student, Mulugeta Seraw was beaten to death by a group of skinheads in Portland, Oregon. The group was influenced heavily by notorious white supremacists, Tom Metzger and his organization WAR—White Aryan Resistance.”

The murder of Mulugeta left his young son, Amine, back in Ethiopia, fatherless. The painful loss was devastating for the whole family. A life cut too short made way for Mulugeta’s father to become a surrogate parent to his grandson.

Justice prevailed with criminal convictions and a historical civil trial. Filmmakers C. Fraser and Darren share, “Led by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the trial became a blueprint for fighting hate groups and led to the current system of tracking hate crimes in America.”

Janet Yang, President of the Academy of Motion Pictures, was very frank about the sorry state of Hollywood today and the challenges ahead with AI in the mix. On my way out the theatre door to have drinks with producers (and talented young filmmakers: https://youtu.be/6d4wfNkaPv4?si=6p5FGeNFX_Vx7NMV), I ran into my brilliant and beautiful Malian l’il sister.

To catch up on our latest ventures in Hollywood, I invited her to join Abu and me for brunch at Great White in Venice and a relaxing day at Abu’s beach house to reminisce about our Malian dance and drumming adventures in Bamako and her visit to my Brown archaeological site at the Giza Pyramids in Egypt. Loved hearing about the film she’s dreaming up and hope I’m in Bamako (staying at her house) when she’s filming it!

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