About this program
Both behind the camera and on the screen, female voices loom large in this collection of shorts, which variously touch on notions of community and being heard.
AFTER THE FILMS: Kayla Cockrel, a web editor at the Free Press, talks with the filmmakers.
The program features the following short films:
‘Lifetimes’
A portrait of a family in Lansing that comprises four generations of Black female community leaders whose stories offer a glimpse into the practical and emotional labor of long-term racial equity work. Directed by Amber Love. (2023)
‘For The Record’
In a small Texas Panhandle town that has survived oil booms and busts, devastating wildfires and a diminishing population, a few things have remained constant: cowboys, high school football, conservative voters and the family-owned weekly The Canadian Record. Despite its liberal editorials in the second-most conservative county in the country, The Record is loved and relied on by the community. But now, editor and publisher Laurie Brown is inching toward 70 and struggling to keep the paper alive. Directed by Michigan native Heather Courtney. (2023)
‘Detroit We Dey’
This doc explores the history and ponders the future of a social club founded by a community of Igbo-Nigerians who immigrated to Detroit in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Through the establishment of Old Bende, these immigrants are redefining ideas of home and community within their adopted homeland. But as the pandemic disrupts physical gatherings and the association grapples with the realities of an aging membership, new anxieties emerge. Directed by Detroit native Ozi Uduma. (2023)
