The Washington, DC International Film Festival celebrates its 35th year with another virtual program, featuring 60 films from 35 countries. But most importantly for area viewers may be DC4Reel, a slate of new features and shorts made by filmmakers in the DMV. Even better: these homegrown programs are free. All films will be available to stream from June 4 – June 13 through eventive.
Go-Go City: Displacement & Protest in Washington, DC
Director Samuel George, a Philadelphia native, explained to DCist last year that “[go-go] was the thing that helped me really feel like I belonged in D.C., that D.C. wasn’t just this transient place.” So the documentary filmmaker and Bertlesmann Foundation analyst originally set out on this project, with the help of Experience Unlimited frontman Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliot, to document the region’s defining go-go scene. So much of Go-Go City consists of figures like Richard “Dickie” Shannon of Horace and Dickie’s and the Backyard Band’s Anwan “Big G” Glover talking about the crucial place that go-go and African American businesses have played in Washington. But while George was making his go-go movie, the music took on yet another life, playing an integral part in area racial justice protests last summer. So along with interviews that tell the history of music and displacement in Washington, the filmmaker included footage of the protests, which frequently featured a go-go truck with live musicians encouraging the crowd. The juxtaposition seems to makes the argument that gentrification helped fuel this anger—whether it was the restaurant boom that forced Horace and Dickie’s to move to the suburbs, or the new Shaw residents that demanded Metro PCS turn off the go-go music that was its signature.
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You can reserve a free ticket here.
Liam White
A terminal cancer diagnosis and a reunion with an estranged mother: In the latest from Harold Jackson III (director of the 2015 rom-com Last Night), that fate befalls the beleaguered novelist Liam (Shaun Woodland), who greets his troubles with a sad shrug. Liam is struggling to write his next novel, which doesn’t seem to matter, since nobody shows up to his readings at Busboys and Poets anyway. Despite enduring enough twists to feed several soap opera plotlines, Woodland for the most part plays his character with a dry defeat, which makes this a fairly restrained drama. The mostly African American ensemble cast, including sitcom veterans TC Carson as Liam Sr. and Jasmine Guy as his estranged mother, keeps the story moving. But it’s Woodland’s weary tone that grounds the drama, which makes the Washington locations an added treat–watch out for a brief scene in 14th Street’s Som Records. Liam White makes its world premiere during FilmFest DC.
Watch the trailer.
You can reserve a free ticket here.
Metro Shorts
This 99-minute program is the fourth edition of a showcase for new short films from area filmmakers. And more often that not, the shorts leave you wanting more. Especially in the case of Kenneth Alexander Campbell’s “BLAHC: The Brookland Literary & Hunting Club,” which tries to tell the story of a Black men’s poker club that operated in Brookland for 70 years—in 10 minutes. One hopes this is just a teaser for a more expansive film. This showcase isn’t just for short documentaries: with limited resources, Heidi Scott’s “Landfill” is a sci-fi dystopia set among the people who haunt a former municipal dumping grounds and uncover the mysteries of the past layer by layer, while Bob Ahmed’s “Tikkun Olam”weaves a maudlin tale about an 8-year-old boy who learns something about respect from an elderly veteran. Still, it’s the non-fiction stories that reveal the most about the region. Robin N. Hamilton’s “Our Alexandria” looks at the work of an older African American couple who uses dollhouses to remember their city’s segregated past. Directors Michael Skinner and Jon Michael Shink offer the longest short in the program, “Oversight,” a kind of documentary thriller that highlights some of the most notorious fraud cases uncovered by D.C.’s Office of the Inspector General.
You can reserve a free ticket here.
A Tale of Three Chinatowns
It was sometime in the mid-2000’s that I first heard residents dismissively refer to D.C.’s Chinatown as “Chinablock.” Compared to vibrant Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco, Washington’s was barely there. What gives? Director Lisa Mao tells that story in comparison with Chinatowns in Boston and Chicago. Boston’s is currently in flux; gentrification and rising property values threatens to pave over a neighborhood that had already been devastated by the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike. One Boston activist singles out D.C.’s Chinatown as a cautionary tale, which leads to the story of how the construction of the old Convention Center and the Gallery Place arena led to the near obliteration of the once thriving immigrant population. For an example of a model Chinatown, one of the few in the U.S. that has actually grown in recent years, the filmmakers look to Chicago, where development has for the most part been kept at bay. A Tale of Three Chinatowns is a fascinating study of immigrant history in a changing city.
Watch the trailer.
You can reserve a free ticket here.
