Multi-Screening: A Selfie With My Great Grandparents, Godspeed, Augustus, Boxed

A Selfie With My Great Grandparents

A young boy leaves his parents home to travel from London to Zimbabwe there he spends the summer with his extended family in Harare, with plenty of adventure.

Kudzi Synos is a Zimbabwean actor,writer director raised in Botswana where he discovered a love for language and motion picture, through poetry and art classes. It was only upon moving to the United Kingdom at age 16 that he pursued theatre and writing which came from joining the Yard Theatre Group, whilst studying a degree in International Relations at Nottingham Trent University. After completing this programme he toured a number of Shakespeare plays and entered an MA Art Programme at Goldsmiths University. After graduating a love for short filmmaking came while taking film directing and acting classes at the Film Actors Club Academy, this led to his first writing/producing credit in The Exchange and later directing and writing Guest House.

Augustus

Augustus, a literate escaped slave masquerading as a free man in Massachusetts in 1841, experiences nightmares of his son's death and a future that resembles the struggles of his own time. Shaken to his core, Augustus realizes the horrors of slavery and racial inequalities will continue if he remains complicit. He’s left with one choice; speak up or lose his freedom.

JON ALSTON - A third-round draft NFL draft pick in 2006, retired in 2011 to pursue storytelling. Since retirement, Jon has directed short films, commercials and music videos. Jon's first screenplay and subsequent directorial debut, RED BUTTERFLY, (which premiered at the St. Louis International Film Festival) and attracted TONY award winner Wilson J. Heredia, International EMMY winner -Diogo Morgado, and Christine Evangelista who lead the E Network's series, THE ARRANGEMENT. Jon's work has amassed millions of views online and has been shown at multiple film festivals. In January of 2017, Jon enrolled at the School of Cinematic Arts at USC. Jon most recently served as Story Editor on the acclaimed TV series ALL AMERICAN and co-wrote the highest viewed episode of season one (All Eyez on Me). He recently wrote and directed the visual teaser for the Grammy nominated Hip-Hop artist, Wale's 6th studio album, "Wow, That's Crazy." Jon is currently adapting the OSCAR nominated short-doc, ST LOUIS SUPERMAN for the big screen. Jon’s latest short film, AUGUSTUS, a haunting period piece about an abolitionist with a twist is currently rounding the festival circuit in 2020.

Why Augustus?

Because this film is my life. I am a Stanford/ USC educated former NFL player…but my life is better defined as the son of a convicted felon. At the tender age of ten, I witnessed my own mother, a smart, albeit brash prosecutor and community activist in the small town of Bastrop, Louisiana succumb to the inherent prejudices of the US “Justice” System. Everything I’ve ever done or sought to do since that moment, was to make it right for my Mother and my family.

I got straight A’s in school because that was the teary-eyed promise I made as she was torn from my arms and led away to prison by bus. I paid her restitution with my NFL signing bonus. She earned her way back into society after paying her “debt” and even gained a bit of success as a legal consultant post-prison…at least until the ‘scarlet letter’ of disbarment continued to become the weapon by which any opposing attorney would attack the credibility of her work.

After witnessing her own boss, who had been exploiting her expertise for more than fourteen years, break the law…he attempted to turn the law against her in order to neutralize her testimony against him. He unduly had her arrested, the day she was to testify. No charges were ever filed, and the event was wiped from the record, but very fact was extremely traumatic and damaging…and there’s nothing we could ultimately do about it. This was 2014.

This is painful, but my Mother’s story has been told a hundred-thousand times in the history of our country. And so, my tears are not just for her or my family, they are for all who have suffered similarly. It is my mission to express what I’ve grown to feel through the medium of film, because my pains were something that I could never talk to anyone else about directly. And now, with AUGUSTUS, I continue to walk in that mission.

Godspeed

Godspeed is a meditative film that explores the notions of personhood, faith, and intergenerational community. Poetry, music, and visuals converge to lead us through the life of a Black girl as she becomes a Black woman. As she is forced to make sense of the dynamic tension between the child she was and the woman she will be, she draws strength from the one person who knows her best: her mother.

Sade Abiodun is a filmmaker of Nigerian and South African descent. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in Neuroscience, finding her passion for filmmaking later in her path. Her first short film — Godspeed — has received high praise, garnering over a dozen festival selections, several awards, and a finalist spot in the 2020 Sundance Ignite Short Film Challenge. She will be starting a PhD at Princeton University in the fall, focusing on neurocinematics - the neuroscience of film. She hopes to bridge the gap between the worlds of film and science, specifically through the study and practice of creating intentional, narrative-driven visual experiences.

Godspeed began as an idea. Persistent, confusing, but simple in its beauty. To see it blossom into a project of this scale goes far beyond anything I could have initially imagined, but serves as a testament to the power of having others believe in your idea. Godspeed, like any 'first,' is intimate. It is challenging. It is a film that you will hopefully resonate with, emotionally and aesthetically. It is a piece of my heart, and for that, I thank you for letting me share it.

• Sade AbiodunDirector
• Sade AbiodunWriter
• Jonathan MichalaProducer
• Michael J IvoryProducer
• Ayana JohnsonKey Cast“Mother ”
• Manasia CobbKey Cast“Young Woman/Woman”
• Arykah DeVaughnKey Cast“Child”
• Sydney KainKey Cast“Young Girl”
• Steve MilliganDirector of Photography
• Sade AbiodunEditor
• Nonnie EgbunaNarrator/Poet

Boxed

A fictionalized short film based on the true story of the terrifying daring escape of Henry "Box" Brown, an enslaved man who used creativity to escape from slavery in 1849 by mailing himself to freedom.

Wanjiru Njendu is an award-winning Kenyan-American filmmaker based in Los Angeles and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2020). Her creative imagination earned her the nickname 'Magic' at a young age. Her African and American upbringing influences her approach as a writer and director for film and television enabling her to have a versatile voice in both African stories and Western stories. This versatility led to her being chosen as a fellow in the Producer's Guild of America Diversity workshop. Wanjiru's film credits include several award-winning short films which have played in over 80 film festivals.

Her short film has been accepted into 60+ film festivals including Cucalorus, Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIBFF), Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (Winner: Mary Austin Award excellence in Screenwriting: Short film - Wanjiru Njendu), The Phoenix Film Festival - Australia ( Winner Best Short film), Papaya Rocks Film Festival - London (Winner Best Director & Best Cinematography), The Catalyst Film Festival - London (Winner - the Director's choice award for best short fiction film) among others. Boxed had qualified and was submitted FYC for the 2020 Academy awards for Best Short Film- Live Action.

Her documentary film Safari ya Jamhuri: The Journey to freedom was used to provide evidence for a lawsuit against the British Government by the MAU MAU colonial war survivors from Kenya. Wanjiru has studio experience having worked for both Disney Studios in various areas and Universal Pictures' Creative Marketing.

She was the shadowing director on the Netflix series "Daybreak" under Mark Tonderai. She recently directed a horror short film that was acquired by Fox Digital Studios. She is working on getting two feature films, Reghost, a post apocalyptic comedy-horror and Lionheart, a coming of age film set in 1995 Brooklyn, financed.

The idea for Boxed came about via chance encounter I had with Karyn Parsons (Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Major Payne) at the 2018 Hollywood Creative Forum. Karyn runs a company Sweet Blackberry that teaches children Black History via animation. The first story they did was Henry Brown's.I latched onto the idea of telling Henry's story, but as a psychological thriller with the audience in the box with him for the duration of his trip. I thought inside the box.

Sometimes you find the story and sometimes the story finds you. As a director I always want to make a film that is not only very stylized but that sparks conversation, as a person I want my stories to say something about Humanity. While Boxed was sparked by a conversation with Karyn Parsons about Black History, it also very relevant to present day where migrants are being sold as slaves in Libya and the present environment and hostility in the country. The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing.

Very often society forgets that them can very easily become us. I chose to make Boxed the way I did to to remind the audience as they watched and experienced what Henry Box Brown went through, that we are accountable when we stand aside. Whether in the past or the present, if we stand aside we are part of the problem. Boxes and chains can be both physical and mental.

The production of this film was very innovative as the film was shot as a psychological drama with a very diverse cast and crew., MOS (No sound recorded on set), with all voices, ADR and sound recorded and designed in post-production to enable us capture the authenticity of the time period. Our sound design and mix was done by John Cantu who was the trailer editor behind Get Out And Us as well as one of 2 people who came up with the Remix Tethered Version of the song I've got 5 on it, which featured both in the Us trailer and film.