Sirius Rising LLC

Thank you so much to our main Sponsor Electric Lettuce!

They specialize in cannabinoid education. If you've ever had a strange experience at a dispenso where the clerk describes some vague subjective experience you might feel with the product in hand, you're not alone. Like, I have no idea what "couch lock" means, is this flower going to relieve some of my symptoms? Will it help reduce stress and anxiety? That's what I want to know.

What I love about Electric Lettuce is their understanding of the underlying compounds that actually correlate to different experiences. I.e, pain relief, sound sleep, anxiety reduction, energy boosting, increased focus, decrease appetite, etc. Check them out, you will not regret it.

Additionally, they understand how the cannabis industry and recent legislation stations around cannabis has left individuals who are considered criminals without support. They do lots of work to collaborate with the last prisoner project which sets out to advocate for criminal justice reform. Through legal intervention and advocacy, to redress the harms of unjust policies.

We love Electric Lettuce, special thanks Brock Hatch for being so awesome and fighting to support Afro Valley Film Festival. CHECK THEM OUT!!
eugene

Jennie Livingston is a groundbreaking filmmaker, known for lively storytelling, nuanced character portraits, and thoughtful explorations of identity, class, race, death, s*x, and gender.

In addition to directing and producing, Jennie's a writer, photographer, draftsperson, educator, and director for hire. At heart, Jennie's work is about how people create and re-create ourselves, about what allows us to survive and flourish. We are, despite the social worlds we create that constrain us, more mysterious, more animal, more complex, more noble. Qualities Jennie values in storytelling: wonder, complexity, and an understanding of what creates and preserves resilience in communities and individuals.

Works as a writer/director include: Paris is Burning; Who's the Top?; Through the Ice; Hotheads. Television: consulting producer and director on PoseFX. Projections for live performance: Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters for Elton John.

Currently, Jennie's working on a first-person hybrid feature, Earth Camp One about losing five family members in a decade, about q***r identity and q***r resilience, and about walking through the world (and surviving) by invoking the powers of looking and listening.

Cheryl Dunye was born in Liberia to an African father and an African-American mother; calls herself an "African-African-American."

Because she felt like an outsider even within her own "diaspora," she had to carve out her own space in the world.

She went to Michigan State University to play rugby, but when she got there, she felt lost.

To try to find her path, she started taking classes in everything from filmmaking to African-American studies to yoga.

Filmmaking became a way for her to find and express who she was, and to communicate her unique self to the world.

Says that her early work documented the life that she lived, which—as an African-American lesbian—was also a life that she didn't often see portrayed in the media.
Her first film, The Watermelon Woman, is considered the first film that was written by, directed by, and about black le****ns.

Says there's no reason not to pursue a passion and take an adventure because "you can always go back."

Who are the Gullah Geechee People?

The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved on the rice, indigo and Sea Island cotton plantations of the lower Atlantic coast. Many came from the rice-growing region of West Africa. The nature of their enslavement on isolated island and coastal plantations created a unique culture with deep African retentions that are clearly visible in the Gullah Geechee people's distinctive arts, crafts, foodways, music, and language.

Gullah Geechee is a unique, creole language spoken in the coastal areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The Gullah Geechee language began as a simplified form of communication among people who spoke many different languages including European slave traders, slave owners and diverse, African ethnic groups. The vocabulary and grammatical roots come from African and European languages. It is the only distinctly, African creole language in the United States and it has influenced traditional Southern vocabulary and speech patterns.

Julie Dash beautifully depicts this culture in Daughters of the Dust.