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A Conversation with Merawi Gerima

A Conversation with Merawi Gerima

Residue, Courtesy of ARRAY

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

A Conversation with Merawi Gerima

Friday, December 18, 2020, 7:00 pm PST

Online via Los Angeles Filmforum

In Person via Zoom: Filmmaker Merawi Gerima in conversation with Chrystel Oloukoi

Tickets: Free! Sign up at https://mgerima.bpt.me

Residue is available via Netflix. Los Angeles Filmforum will not be screening the film, audience members are invited to watch it before attending the conversation.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81264674 

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and the Acting Award for its star Obinna Nwachukwu, along with receiving the honorable mention for Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize, at Slamdance.

Los Angeles Filmforum presents Merawi Gerima and Chrystel Oloukoi in conversation discussing Gerima’s film Residue. Gerima’s film, semi-autobiographical and made with almost no-budget, defies easy categorization. Memory, loss, love, gentrification, and the remnants of the carceral system are part of the film’s unique orbit.

Written and directed by Merawi Gerima, RESIDUE follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) returning to his childhood Washington, DC, neighborhood that has been gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of his best friend, and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, gentrification and loss.

http://www.arraynow.com/residue

"Residue is a fleeting and haunting lament for what is lost to gentrification, and other tolls on black life in America. But at the same, it’s exhilarating and monumental, laced with the sensation that we’re discovering a bold and sensitive new voice." ***** in The Guardian.  "A haunting drama on the dangers of gentrification."

"An arresting feature debut about a man returning home to a community that has been transformed, Merawi Gerima's Residue is honest enough about its protagonist's emotions and motivations that it's likely to cause discomfort in viewers wherever they fall on the socioeconomic spectrum. Elliptical and teasingly (but beautifully) photographed, it can give the impression of an experimental work but ultimately has a direct story to tell, one whose specificity doesn't in the least diminish its broader relevance." - John DeFore, Rolling Stone

"The process of filming gave me the opportunity to see that, by whatever means, every neighborhood should sprout its own storytellers. In telling my own story, tussling with my demons in an intimate way, I seem to have told a story that many people from my community feel a claim to. That’s the kind of cyclical, dialectical relationship that I wish for every Black community out there—the wherewithal to stop every Hollywood filmmaker at the doorstep and say, “Who are you and what are your intentions and why do you think you can tell a story better than we can?” Because it’s never true. You just have the resources to be able to tell it before we can." - Merawi Gerima, in an interview with Rosa Cartagena, in The Washingtonian. 

"Coming back to the hood with a camera and a film tape thinking, I'm about to do something big. Then somebody from there just being like, "Actually, we don't need you." Actually, you're not saving us." - Gerima in an interview at No Film School

Biographies:

Merawi Gerima is a filmmaker from Washington DC. This origin informs his work and his community-centered orientation. RESIDUE, his first feature, was a total communal endeavor, made possible primarily by the effort of the people it attempts to portray.  Following its world premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, RESIDUE was honored with the festival's Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature and the Acting Award for star Obinna Nwachukwu. RESIDUE is also an official selection of the 77th Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori. Gerima is a graduate from the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts (SCA). He is the son of celebrated Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, a legendary figure in the L.A. Rebellion film movement and filmmaker Shirikiana Aina, who also appears in the film.

Chrystel Oloukoi is a PhD student, a curator for the Is That Jazz Lagos Movie Club, and a film critic. Her work has appeared in Sight and Sound and BFI. 

Residue

By Merawi Gerima (Writer, Director, Editor)

2020, Digital and 8mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 90 minutes

Written and directed by Merawi Gerima, Residue follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) returning to his childhood Washington, DC, neighborhood that has been gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of his best friend, and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, gentrification and loss. 

Produced by: Alex J. Bledsoe, Mulu Gerima, Alexx Temena

Cinematography by: Mark Jeevaratnam

Cast: Obinna Nwachukwu, Dennis Lindsey, Taline Stewart, Derron Scott, Jamal Graham, JaCari Dye, Julian Selman, Melody Tally, Ramon Thompson, Hasinatu Camara

Residue7

Residue, Directed by Merawi Gerima, Courtesy of ARRAY

Residue

Residue

By Merawi Gerima (Writer, Director, Editor)

2020, Digital and 8mm transferred to digital, color, sound, 90 minutes

Written and directed by Merawi Gerima, Residue follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu) returning to his childhood Washington, DC, neighborhood that has been gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of his best friend, and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, gentrification and loss.

Produced by: Alex J. Bledsoe, Mulu Gerima, Alexx Temena

Cinematography by: Mark Jeevaratnam

Cast: Obinna Nwachukwu, Dennis Lindsey, Taline Stewart, Derron Scott, Jamal Graham, JaCari Dye, Julian Selman, Melody Tally, Ramon Thompson, Hasinatu Camara