I Will Follow "I Will Follow"

So when I dragged my butt out of my apt on Saturday afternoon to meet my friend who invited me to see this film at BAM, I thought we were just going to see a movie. I was tired, period just started, the weather as you know was awful, but I went anyway and I'm so glad I did because this was more than a movie. It was a Black People's Brooklyn event! I was born in Brooklyn so, I was clearly supposed to be there. LOL!


My friend went to UCLA with the director of "I Will Follow," Ava DuVerny and was coming out to support her film which screened at BAM late that afternoon as part of the "BAM Cinematek" series. The audience was predominantly black and female and there were press and presenters and a Q&A afterward. I had no idea.


The film, which follows the journey of a middle aged woman who has just lost her Aunt to breast cancer and was a powerful motivation in her life takes place in Topenga California. When DuVernay came on to introduce it, she stated plainly that it was neither edgy or avant garde but just a straight forward semi-autobiographical narrative.


From the opening ten minutes I was hooked. Not only was it wonderfully shot and gorgeously lit, but the characters were refreshingly genuine and engaging in way I was so happy to see for the first time in a long while in a movie featuring people of color predominantly. Women taking care of loved ones in their lives is something that as woman we all know a little about. This film is about one day in the life of a woman, played by Salli Richardson Whitfield who loses a relative that she has sacrificed a large part of life to care for. Now she is struggling with picking up the pieces of that life to start over again and throughout the day she will engage with and fight with and talk and love with family, strangers, lovers and memories alike.


The famous aunt, Amanda Fisher who has passed was a sessions drum player for famous black musicians in the 70s. Throughout the film DuVernay cleverly strings together the theme of music in the relationship between her and her niece. "I Will Follow" comes not only from the Biblical verse in the story of Ruth but also from the U2 song, "I Will Follow." Her aunt makes no small show of her love for U2 and Bono when she struts over to her CD collection and calls out a stream of favorite song titles challenging her niece to see what she "knows about that." I know a lot about that myself and I was thrilled!


The performances by all the actors, even the smallest parts are thoughtful, well rounded and compelling. In particular, I was very moved by the sensitive performances of Omari Hartwick, (I first saw him as Janet Jackson's husband in "For colored Girls"), Blair Underwood, Michole white, who plays the Aunt's Daughter and Dijon Talton who plays her son.


It was wonderful to see black people in life situations that were not indicative only of the disproportionately stereotypical dramas with which Hollywood seems to release the majority of "Black films" on the subject of drugs, single parent families, "baby mama drama" violence and black on black crime. I would urge anyone and everyone to go see this movie but particularly people of color for whom DuVernay asks for the majority of it's support because these are the people for whom the film was made. I was honored to be able to meet and be introduced to her by my friend shortly after the film and the Q&A. It was a great pleasure to stand and chat with her briefly and observe the bright glow of deservedly positive reception her film received.


"I Will Follow" will be released in theaters through limited engagement in March and I urge you to show your support and see this sensitive, moving, down to earth and touching portrait with friends.

Straight Out of Brooklyn

Studying the transnational migration of Puerto Ricans back and forth from P.R. to Chicago in my Urban Cultural Diversity class has got me thinking about my own mini migrations from borough to borough in New York City. I was born in Brooklyn which I love with all my heart and then when I was about eight, we moved to the Bronx to live in a house for the first time because my parents wanted my brother and I to have space to run around and play and have our own rooms and things like that, While all that was wonderful, I never liked the Bronx. I hesitate to say I hated it but I never really liked it. I went to High School in Manhattan and spent at least 65 percent of my time there when I wasn't in the house in the Bronx. Brooklyn had my library, Prospect Park, the museum, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (I lived for that Garden) and the Bronx had...bodegas, elevated trains, bodegas, late night gunfire...lemme see, hmmmm, I guess I liked the quiet semi-suburban area I lived in. The Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center was right across the street from my house. I took art and drama classes there and also attended went to day camp there one summer. I also worked there as the assistant to the director for one of the cultural youth programs. But always, I was looking down my nose at the Bronx. It wasn't me. Now I live in Harlem. I never wanted to but circumstances have seen fit to place me there in the same way that many circumstances force Puerto Ricans to move back and forth from the mainland to Chicago. Some love P.R. and remain closely tied to it even as they live in their own cultural enclaves in Chicago. Eventually, when they earn enough money they return to P.R. to retire in an environment which many claim to be more nurturing of child rearing and more safe to live. Others have a different experience, and prefer the isolation and privacy that Chicago city life provides to the claustrophobic closeness of family networks in Puerto Rico or the lack of mobility and nearby resources.

I'm not going to say that I love Harlem just yet. But I do love my neighborhood. I love living right across the street from a large park, adjacent to a small library, five minutes away from my gym and no more than a half hour on the train to my job or any other place I need to go in Manhattan. Once in awhile I miss the long rides commuting to Manhattan from the Bronx is because I got a lot of reading done in those days. Nowadays I have to do a lot of my reading during lunch or whenever I find the time.

I don't get down to Brooklyn very often unless I happen to be visiting a friend who lives there like I did last week. And then I remember how I much I love it all over again, how it feels like I never left, how all my favorite areas, Bergen Street, Flatbush, Park Slope, Grand Army Plaza and Eastern Parkway are like extensions of myself. No matter where I live in the world I will always consider myself a Brooklynite.