OUR PHILADELPHIA (2020)

In collaboration with a group of Philadelphia teenagers, I produced a documentary short about grief and the aftermath of gun violence.

The film was directed by three teenagers, alumni of the same West Philadelphia high school, and features original music from local Philadelphia artists. The project was edited by Draulhaus and supported by The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, the Center for Experimental Ethnography, the Annenberg School for Communication, and CAMRA at the University of Pennsylvania.

Check out recent articles about the project in Billy Penn, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and Boston College’s The Heights. You can also download the press kit here.

Our Philadelphia premiered on YouTube on July 11, 2020 and was subsequently streamed as part of the Philadelphia Do the Write Thing Recognition Ceremony and the Perceptions: Exploring Gun Violence Online Film Forum. In November 2020, Our Philadelphia screened at FirstGlance Film Festival Philadelphia, where it was nominated for Best Documentary Director. In June 2021, Our Philadelphia was nominated for and won a Billies Award from Billy Penn!

Watch the film here or on YouTube. [Or view the closed captioned version here.]

Club with no name (2020)

Club With No Name.jpg

Poster for film screening organized by one of the mothers.

The story of three Black Philadelphia mothers who lost their sons to neighborhood youth gun violence. They are forever bonded as members of this undesirable club, but finding ways to transform their pain into purpose.

You can watch the film on YouTube now. [Or view the closed captioned version here.]

Making Sweet Tea (2019)

In 2019 I completed my first feature-length documentary, Making Sweet Tea, in collaboration with Dr. John L. Jackson, Jr. and other collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania based on E. Patrick Johnson’s long-term oral history and performance project, Sweet Tea, about gay Black men in the American South.

Making Sweet Tea is a documentary film that chronicles the journey of southern-born, black gay researcher and performer, E. Patrick Johnson, as he travels home to North Carolina to come to terms with his past, and to Georgia, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. to reconnect with six black gay men he interviewed for the book, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History. Johnson transformed that book into several staged plays over the course of a decade. The film combines documentary moments from the men’s lives a decade after the publication of the book and from Johnson’s life, depicting both how the men have changed and been changed by the book and play. The film also covers the complexities of Johnson’s relationships with the men, with his family, and with his hometown in western North Carolina. One experimental component of the film is Johnson's re-staging the performance of the men’s narrative in their homes, in their churches, or on their jobs, sometimes with them directing him and/or with them in the scene. Blurring the line between art and life, Making Sweet Tea offers a rare glimpse into the lives of people rarely given a platform to speak, while also demonstrating how research, artistry, and life converge. More Information: https://sweetteafilm.com

The film premiered at Reeling Film Festival in Chicago in September 2019, where it won the Silver Image Award. We also won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Out on Film Festival in Atlanta in October, and awards at several other film festivals (many virtual, sadly) in 2020. Check out a recent article about the film in Penn Today and an interview with me and my Co-Director in Queerty.

Making Sweet Tea is now streaming on several major platforms! More information about the film, the team, and how to watch can be found at the Making Sweet Tea website.

select filmmaker Q&As:

The Last Slam (2013)

My first documentary, The Last Slam, centers on a transitional moment in the life of David Fasanya, an accomplished performance poet who is facing his 20th birthday -- an event that will age him out of the teen poetry organization through which he has built his identity and community.

Make sure to watch to the very end -- there is an epilogue of sorts during the credits! Re-edited October 2013.

You can watch the 22-minute film here or on my Vimeo page or Urban Word's YouTube channel.

The film was premiered at The New School's Truth Be Told Documentary Festival in New York City in May 2013. It then screened at several festivals and academic conferences in 2013-2014.

For more information about my multimodal scholar colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, check out: