![Three people on a sidewalk; the image focuses on one person's jacket with stitching: "Ain't No Game Like Frisco Game"](https://s3.amazonaws.com/nightjarprod/content/uploads/sites/230/2022/02/11093358/DTTW_Rough_12.25.00_04_05_09.Still019-Jules-Retzlaff.png)
Through the Lens: Realizing Identity & Needs Through Filmmaking
- 120 mins
Photo: Dedicated to Those Who, Jules Retzlaff, 2021
Bay Area performers and filmmakers are grappling with what it means to be artists as displacement, surveillance, violence, the pandemic, and economic disruption wreak havoc on their communities.
They follow a long lineage of local media makers leveraging film as a collaborative process to engage their communities, by connecting personal emotional truths to immediate social priorities and needs. The program will explore how media makers are experimenting with and pushing the boundaries of filmmaking by redefining the meaning of success, away from the commercial-driven goal of building mass audiences and toward community-driven self-identification and inclusion.
Join us at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center’s Screening Room or virtually via the live stream. Make sure to register for the correct ticket type. Per City policy, masks are required at all times while indoors regardless of vaccination status.
Curation by Omeed Manocheri
Panelists:
Isa Nakazawa (Moderator), Director of Marketing and Communications, BAVC
Donté Clark, Poet
Mike Evans Jr, Comedian, Writer, Filmmaker
Jules Retzlaff, Filmmaker
Alba Roland Mejia, Writer, Producer, and Director
Co-Presented by ![BAYCAT STUDIO](https://s3.amazonaws.com/nightjarprod/content/uploads/sites/230/2022/02/16130149/baycatstudio-logo.png)
In this program
Dedicated to Those Who
Directed by Jules Retzlaff
A hybrid doc and visual album exploring the struggles of the past, present, and future San Francisco.
Rent Check
Directed by Jules Retzlaff, Mike Evans Jr
Mike, a young Black comedian, is conflicted upon discovering his brother’s career.
Blackness is Everything
Directed by Alba Roland Mejia
Blackness is Everything is an experimental/performative short film that celebrates the diversity of the Black diaspora in The Bay Area.