By JOSEPH BERGER Selena M. Blake lived at Queensbridge Houses during the many years when the gunfire of drug dealers crackled through the night and confirmed the public’s view of the projects as a place of mayhem and menace. Once, right from her mother’s bedroom window, she saw one man fire at another and miss. Another time, while shopping, she had to drop to the ground after she heard the pop-pop of bullets. The gritty setting inspired a legion of rappers. Yet Ms. Blake, 43, also knew a Queensbridge that never made the news, a place where bus drivers, postal workers and seamstresses kept an eye on one another’s children in the courtyard jungle gyms, and borrowed potatoes to finish off a stew. She felt so secure that she often forgot to lock her door. In the late 1990’s, it was a drug dealer who banged on it to let her know that the police were towing her car. “They look out for you here,” she said. “Everyone here knows we’re all on the same level,” she said. “You’re not better than I am. I’m not better than you. We’re just trying to raise our kids.” She had such great affection for Queensbridge, a checkerboard of six-story brick buildings along the East River in Long Island City whose 3,142 apartments and 7,054 tenants make it the nation’s largest public housing project, that she wanted to correct the distorted portraits of life there. So a year and a half ago, with no experience producing films, she set out to make a documentary about Queensbridge. She paid a camera crew $1,000 a day to film interviews with residents and former residents like the basketball star Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers - known in the projects as Ron-Ron - until her money ran out. Then she cajoled Gregory O. Larkin, a filmmaker whom she met at a party in TriBeCa, to shoot the remaining film and edit it in her cramped apartment, where a bicycle takes up half the kitchen. She paid him $200 a week, and he taught her to operate a camera. Ultimately, she and Mr. Larkin conducted 82 interviews and shot 75 hours of film. She estimates that she spent $100,000 - most of it from a half-dozen credit cards she used to the maximum, several thousands of dollars in loans from friends and relatives, and earnings from a patchwork of jobs including cooking for a catering firm, modeling and acting for commercials and appearing as an extra on TV shows .An incomplete version of the hour long film, “Queensbridge: The Other Side,” was shown last month to current and former residents in a screening nearby at the American Museum of the Moving Image. The film, while a little rough in spots, does not mince words about its dark side, particularly the 1980’s and 1990’s, when crack, and resulting turf wars, made it, like much of the city, a danger zone. In 1986, there were 4 murders and 151 assaults within Queensbridge’s borders. The movie suggests that residents treated the problem as they would a spell of bad weather, taking sensible precautions like keeping their children home late at night in the same way that Floridians board up windows for a hurricane. “This is the place where if you don’t have common sense, you learn it very fast,” Ms. Blake likes to say. And it tries to resolve a paradox about low-income projects: why places that have become a synonym for human misery should boast long waiting lists. Right now, 326 families are waiting to get into Queensbridge. The film rapidly crosscuts interviews between “thugs,” as it calls the troublemakers, and current and former residents who have made good. The latter include State Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead; Mr. Artest, who baby-sat for Ms. Blake’s son, Daniel Brown; Todd Craig, an instructor at Queensborough Community College who earned a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and such hip-hop luminaries as the rappers Marley Marl and Capone. Marley Marl, whose real name is Marlon Williams, recalled gazing at the Manhattan skyline beyond the Queensboro Bridge like Dorothy beholding Emerald City in “The Wizard of Oz.” “What I liked about Queensbridge was the roar of car wheels going over the bridge - there was a certain hum - and it was very meditative for me,” he said. “I used to go over to the park and write lyrics and dream and look at Manhattan. One day, I was going to take over Manhattan.” Ms. Blake, who still has the lilt of her native Jamaica, was a young mother when she moved to Queensbridge in 1987 with her mother after living in an apartment in East Elmhurst, Queens. She was put off by knots of street-corner idlers. But meeting neighbors changed her impressions. In an interview, she said that when she had no money, “the Spanish family on the second floor would feed me.” She starts the film by flashing statistics that disprove some popular notions. Only 21.6 percent of Queensbridge’s tenants receive welfare, and, excluding the elderly, almost all the rest are employed, though Queensbridge’s average gross annual income is less than $20,000 and The average rent is a little more than $300 a month the average tenant has been there 16 years. Queensbridge, one of nation’s earliest projects, was built in 1939 by the administration of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Many early residents were veterans of World War II. The film highlights a group of elderly Italian-American women, who in the 1950’s called themselves the 12th Street Girls, and other early tenants who recalled that friends were envious of amenities there, like elevators and incinerators, and bathtubs that were in the bathroom, not the kitchen. None of the 12th Street Girls live there anymore. The residents recall the time Sugar Ray Robinson visited Queensbridge to show children at the Jacob Riis Settlement House, the community’s social center, how to box. Riis was also where the actor Mel Johnson Jr. learned to tap-dance 16 shuffles and a time step, a skill he used when he appeared in the Broadway musical “Eubie.” Justice Edmead, an African-American who lived in the projects from 1951 to 1965, recalled the friendships between black and white families in one of the few city neighborhoods where the races lived together. “We were all in this pot together, this pot called Queensbridge Houses,” she said. “Everybody looked out for everybody else’s children. If you did something in the street, they would take care of you right there, and it was never a question that the neighbors couldn’t do it.” Whites, though, began moving out in the late 1950’s. Some moved because they were earning enough to afford moderate-income projects that had opened, like nearby Ravenswood. Others left because they did not feel comfortable when blacks became the majority. By the mid-70’s, when Mr. Craig, the college instructor, was born, life was harder, though a sense of community still held fast. “When I was growing up, I knew somebody was a crack head, but that was somebody’s mother,” said Mr. Craig, 31. In some frames of the movie, a man known as Uptown Ali, who spent 11 years in prison for selling drugs, is shown returning to Queensbridge to encourage teenagers to stay off them. “I was part of the ones messing the projects up,” he says. “So now I think it’s only right for me to help clean it up now.” Life in Queensbridge has improved with the overall drop in crime. Residents say drug dealing has plummeted since February, when Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, announced the arrests of 37 people for selling drugs on “the Hill,” as Queensbridge’s shopping plaza is called. In 2004, there were no murders and just 25 assaults, according to Housing Authority statistics. 
The Metro Section
Her Film Project Happens to Be Her Project
December 14, 2005
Ms. Blake hopes her film will help polish Queensbridge’s image.“If kids today will say ‘I don’t have to feel bad because I’m from the projects,’ it will be worth it,” she said.
Copyright 2005
Selena Blake takes on
published: Tuesday | July 1, 2008
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
FROM HER home in New York City, Selena Blake keeps up to date with events in her native Jamaica. She is aware of the music scene and perennial crime, but chose to focus on an embattled minority for Taboo ... Gay and Lesbian Yardies: The Voices of Those Who Dare to Speak, her second documentary.
Blake, 45, said she decided to take on the sensitive subject of Jamaican aggression toward gays last year. At a fund-raising event in New York City for Taboo last week, she said patrons were concerned that violence against homosexual was still rampant in Jamaica.
"I was speaking to someone who told me that Elton John has completely boycotted Jamaica because of this, and it's not just him. Several prominent folks have decided not to do stuff in Jamaica," Blake told The Gleaner.
Production cost
Blake plans to gather an eclectic 'cast' for Taboo which she says will cost US$250,000 to produce. She is planning to inrerview persons from 'across the board' in Miami, Canada, England and Jamaica.
To date, Blake has spoken to members of the Caribbean gay community in New York City including Jamaican activist Staceyann Chin and Christine Quinn, the openly gay speaker of the New York City Council.
"This documentary is not just about gays, it's about Jamaica," Blake pointed out. "I want to show that we are not monsters, we are not all homophobic."
Taboo follows on the heels of Queensbridge: The Other Side, Blake's revealing documentary about the Long Island housing project, which got strong reviews from noted publications like the New York Times. She went public with Taboo at a time when Jamaican indifference to gays is once again on the radar.
Hopes to interview Golding
During a television interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation in May, Prime Minister Bruce Golding scoffed at 'boycott Jamaica' threats by gay groups in Canada and Europe. He also said he would not consider a homosexual for a post in his Cabinet.
Blake said she hopes to interview Golding when she comes to Jamaica for filming. She also looks forward to similar meetings with some of the dancehall acts who have been criticized by gay rights groups for encouraging violence against homosexuals.
Buju Banton, Sizzla, Beenie Man and Capleton are among the dancehall artistes who have been dogged by groups like Britain's Outrage! for their anti-gay stance.
'Funny people' Selena Blake remembers 'funny people' being ostracised for their lifestyle in her hometown of Old Harbour, St Catherine, but were never heckled or beaten.
"There was a lesbian who served in a bar and a gay man in the community, but honestly I cannot recall anyone troubling them," she said. Blake, the youngest of six daughters, immigrated to the New York City borough of Queens with her mother in 1979. She built a 20-year career as a model and gained bit parts in films and television commercials.
She said she got the film-maker bug from being around film and commercial sets. Two years ago, Blake challenged racial stereotypes in her documentary on Queensbridge, America's largest low-income housing project where she once lived with her son.
'Taboo' is bound to be just as explosive but Blake insists the film will not be sensational.
"This is going to show that gays, straight people, transsexuals, whoever, need to sit down and talk about this issue because it's not going to go away," she said.
In 2004, producers drop Beenie Man from the MTV awards following protests by gay rights activists.
Selena Blake looks at Jamaican homophobia with 'Taboo: Yardies.'
Thursday, July 24th 2008, 5:45 PM
Writer, producer and director Selena Blake interviews gay and straight Jamaicans about the island nation's treatment of homosexuals in her documentary, tentatively titled 'Taboo: Yardies.'
Any doubts about how deeply homophobia is ingrained in Jamaica, West Indies, culture were put to rest in May when Prime Minister Bruce Golding told the British Broadcasting Channel that there were no homosexuals in his cabinet and none would be allowed to serve.
Golding's declaration came after attacks against gays, or "batty-man" in island vernacular, prompted calls for tourist boycotts of the island nation, whose economy is highly dependent on tourism.
Queens filmmaker and native-born Jamaican Selena Blake is looking at the real cost and extent of the island's contentious relationship with its current and former gay residents.
Blake, 45, of Long Island City, has tentatively titled her documentary "Taboo: Yardies." She's interviewing gay and straight Jamaicans in this country and in Jamaica about the island's unapologetically ill treatment of its homosexual population.
"This is not just about a person's sexual preference," Blake said. "This is a human rights issue. People are trying to tell other people what they should do to make them happy. But another person's personal life is none of your business."
Gay Jamaicans have been harassed and beaten by mobs - last year a group of men threw bottles through a church window during a funeral service for a gay man, eventually entering the church and demanding the funeral be halted.
In February, a gay police officer, Michael Hayden, was forced to flee the country for Canada because of death threats he received after coming out. Hayden said he was regularly harassed by his law enforcement colleagues, and accused police of doing little to halt the violence.
In other reports, gay men accuse Jamaican police of being their tormentors.
Violence against gays there prompted Human Rights Watch to issue the 2004 report "Hated to Death: Violence and Jamaica's HIV/AIDS Epidemic."
The attacks have prompted several gay and human rights groups here to call for a tourist boycott of the island, an action several Canadian legislators also have urged.
Blake is writer-director of "Queensbridge; The Other Side," a documentary on the history of Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, where she still lives. The film was well-received - it appeared in a number of film festivals and is now part of Social Studies lesson plans in 50 New York City public schools.
Blake immigrated to New York from Kingston, Jamaica, when she was 16 years old. She still retains a bit of her accent and much love for her home country.
"What's going on with gay-bashing in Jamaica is sad because there are so many other issues the country needs to be dealing with, like gun violence," she said.
Blake has interviewed gay and straight Jamaicans in Washington and Boston, some of whom were directly affected by the violence and others who managed to grow up with it and remain relatively unscathed.
Her subjects include Bishop Zachary Jones, a Jamaican native who pastors Unity Fellowship Church, an East New York, Brooklyn, church built around a majority gay congregation, and Kenneth Reeves, a Jamaican expatriate who is now a Cambridge, Mass., city councilman.
Blake said she wants to show the wide-ranging effect homophobia has on Jamaican lives, and the many forms it can take.
"I spoke to a female couple who are splitting up because one of the women wants to move back to Jamaica and the other says she won't live like that," Blake said.
Another interview was with Princess Princess, 43, mother of two and owner of the Déjà Vu Hair Utopia on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, who said she lived as a gay woman even before immigrating here 20 years ago.
Interviewed for this column, Princess said she never saw much violence against gays while living in Jamaica "because people would just cut and run." But she also found Golding's assertion that there were no gays in his cabinet laughable.
"It's not true what the prime minister said," she insisted. "Most of the gay people in Jamaica are closet gays. They're not being real with themselves or with the people around them."
D'Niscio Brooks, 36, is a concert prompter and originator of Carifest, the annual day-long concert by Caribbean artists he has held on Randalls Island since 1994.
Brooks said the event lost a lot of money last year after several gay organizations protested appearances by Buju Banton and Bounty Killa, popular singers who have recorded songs with gay-bashing lyrics.
"The artists all got paid," Brooks said. "The money came out of my pocket. I took the loss. Before the protests, New York 1 was the only station that would give us any coverage. After that, we were in all the mainstream media, but for the wrong reason.
"Mayor Bloomberg and several City Councilmen were all on my back about them," Brooks said, referring to Banton and Bounty Killa's appearances at Carifest. "I told them, and I told the artists, that Carifest has a code of conduct, and if they violated that code of conduct, they would be pulled from the stage.
"I told Buju that if he said anything anti-gay, I would turn off his mike and take him off the stage. He did and I did."
But the protest still hurt Carifest enough that poor ticket sales prompted Brooks to cancel this year's event.
Filmmaker Exposes the Real Truth About ‘The Bridge’ By Heidi Morales Vol. 35, No. 9 First Class U.S. Postage Paid — Permit No. 4119, New York, N.Y.10007 nyc.gov/nycha September 2005
Selena Blake and co-producer Gregory Larkin in front of Queensbridge Houses. For more information, log on to http://spaces.msn.com/members/maynovproductions or e-mail Ms. Blake at maynovproductions@msn.com.
BY NOW, I’M SURE WE’VE ALL BEEN EXPOSED TO THE NEGATIVE PORTRAYAL OF PUBLIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MEDIA. But those who have lived and continue to live in public housing know that there are good, hard working, community-minded people residing in public housing developments. There are people who make it their life’s work to serve their community.
One woman in a small, cluttered apartment—visual proof of nearly 20 years of habitation, is trying to change the image of “the projects.” Selena Blake—long-time resident of NYCHA’s largest development, Queensbridge Houses, single mom, part-time model, actress, caterer, and now full-time documentary film producer— is trying to show the world that public housing is home to many good people.
Ms. Blake has decided to thank the Queensbridge Houses community for all of the years of friendship, care and loyalty it has shown her and her family by producing a documentary, an oral history of sorts, of “The Bridge” as it is known by many. It was after her son Daniel graduated from high school that Ms. Blake realized that a lot of what she and her son were able to accomplish was because of the “family” she had created at the development.
Ms. Blake said living at The Bridge has been a godsend. “I looked back and I said, wow, there are some really good people here. I’d love to just show the other side of Queensbridge. I’ve been on Park Avenue, I’ve been in the Atrium on 57th and Park Avenue where my girlfriend lives…and believe it or not I prefer being in Queensbridge. It feels like home; I’m comfortable here, the people know you…I don’t get that anywhere else.”
However, Ms. Blake, who moved to Queensbridge with her mother and son in 1987 from their home in Jamaica, wasn’t always a believer. “It took me a couple of years of blending in, the neighbors baby-sitting for me, the upstairs neighbors, and the downstairs neighbors. My mom was on dialysis; they would help with the wheelchair coming up…they were very helpful. It’s amazing how we judge things by the way we think things should be and we put them in that little box.” So in an effort to say “thank you” to her Queensbridge family, Ms. Blake took every cent she had and hired a professional film crew for a little over $1000 a day to record the stories of the people of The Bridge.
Five weeks later the funds were gone and the project was nowhere close to being finished. It wasn’t until she met her current co-producer, Gregory Larkin, at a networking mixer that the project really took off Mr. Larkin is the technical brain of this project and Ms. Blake is the creative genius behind it. “I wasn’t supposed to be doing this; I was just supposed to give guidance, consulting services,” said Mr. Larkin. But “Queensbridge: The Other Side” has become a full-time job for Mr. Larkin who puts in an average of 15 hours a day recording and editing. His belief in this documentary is so great that this seasoned media professional is doing all this for only $200 a month. Now with over $50,000 in debt between credit cards and small business loans, and thousands of dollars invested in recording and editing equipment, Ms. Blake still needs just as much to finish putting her documentary together.
She has interviewed over 115 people and has about 75 hours of footage including still pictures from the 1930’s and 1940’s, that were given to her by residents, or that she’s been able to find in the LaGuardia Archives. She’s even interviewed a group of Jewish women who lived in Queensbridge in the 1940’s. Ms. Blake and Mr. Larkin hope their documentary inspires other filmmakers to explore the hidden history and the “diamonds in the rough” of public housing. They hope to see “Queensbridge: The Other Side” on PBS and the local television channels.
“I hope just to see it out there because people need to check the stereotype at the door and come open your mind and take a look at this…At least I know a seed is planted and somehow you are going to see housing projects and the people in them in a different light,” said Ms. Blake. Mr. Larkin added that working on the documentary has helped him appreciate what he called, “the silent majority—the good hard-working people of ‘the projects. ’Now I’m the biggest advocate for public housing! ” Ms. Blake said she plans to use any proceeds gathered from the film to help build another community center, and she challenges celebrities like NBA star Ron Artest and Rapper Nas, who have come out of Queensbridge and are part of the documentary, to give back to the community.
New York Daily News
A Bridge to the past
Shining a light on housing project
By Clem Richardson
Selena Blake doesn’t live in those Queensbridge Houses. Not the ones in the news, riddled with drugs and violence. Blake has spent almost 20 years in her Queensbridge Houses, in Long Island City, Queens, in the shadows of the Queensboro Bridge, and she says they are not like that anymore.
Blake’s Queensbridge, the largest housing project in the country with 96 buildings and more than 15,000 residents, is a safe place, close to Manhattan, where even between jobs she can make the rent and afford to feed herself and her son. And living there, she said, allowed her as a single parent “the freedom to be a mom” to her son, Daniel Brown, 18.
“The rent was low enough that I could afford to take jobs where I could be here when he got out of school every day,” said the caterer, actress and model, who has appeared in a few “Sex and the City” episodes and several magazine shoots. “I could attend all the school functions and meetings because I didn’t have to work all the time to pay the rent. I felt perfectly safe here, because people were looking out for us.” And though she had seen the bad days - “before I moved here, I had never seen so many young men standing around on a corner,” she said - the place has improved radically since 2001, when police increased their presence. Blake wants more people to see Queensbridge that way.
That’s the idea behind “Queensbridge: The Other Side,” a documentary on the complex that Blake has been filming during the past year. Yet all of her experience in front of the camera hadn’t begun to prepare Blake for work behind it. For instance, at first she hired a professional film crew - at a couple thousand dollars a day. They lasted a week - the same time her money ran out. Then there were The film permits, surety bonds and insurance, costs that had to be met even when Blake said she didn’t know how she would pay her rent “I’ve had a few eviction notices, and sometimes I have no idea why I started this in the first place,” she said. “But every time I start thinking I want to stop, something comes up to keep me going. The money appears from nowhere, or someone calls to tell me how much they enjoyed talking to me. That keeps me going.” With a crew of volunteers and sometimes wielding the camera and sound equipment by herself, Blake said she has captured more than 75 hours of interviews with Queensbridge residents past and present.
She has wrangled talks with NBA star and Queensbridge native Ron Artest; rapper Nas (Nasir Jones), another local made good, and still is trying to nail one with legendary rap producer Marlon (Marley Marl) Williams, who, with MC Shan, created “The Bridge,” an early rap megahit about life in Queensbridge.
She has gotten New York Supreme Court Justice Carol Robinson Edmead, actor Mel Johnson, assemblymen and -women, court officers, police officers and sometimes-reluctant residents to sit for her. Advertisements in neighborhood papers and word of mouth got her a sit down with a group of Jewish and Italian-American women who grew up in Queensbridge back in the 1940s - the project was opened in 1939 - who met just so Blake could capture them on camera. Her interview subjects produced hundreds of still pictures that also appear in the documentary.
Blake also found Greg Larkin, a professional film director and producer, at a Black Filmmakers Foundation mixer. Larkin said he was so impressed with Blake’s drive to finish the project that he signed on. “I see this as an opportunity to tell a great story,” Larkin said. He noted that when Queensbridge residents were mostly Jewish and Italian, “There were a lot of social programs available that they used to get out of the projects. Those programs don’t exist here anymore, and that means it’s more difficult for people to be as upwardly mobile.” Blake estimates she has sunk about $50,000 into “Queensbridge” and probably needs about as much to finish
Documentary Heralds A New Era At Queensbridge Houses
By Ron Brownlow, Western Queens Editor October 20, 2005
“I did have a sense of fear the first time I came here,” he said, “but now, I just walk in. And I notice that other people are just walking in. This is just a place where working people live.” Larkin hopes that “Queensbridge: The Other Side,” the documentary he is helping edit and produce, will help others see the complex the way he has come to see it. “We’re hoping that this will be the beginning of a sociological approach of how to tell the story of projects in America,” he said. To be sure, the 96-building complex— which officially has 15,000 residents but which locals say has thousands more—has produced more than its fair share of dope fiends, crack heads and gang members.
But the days when residents heard gunshots every night are long gone. And with its low rents and its close proximity to Manhattan and multimillion-dollar Long Island City developments, Queensbridge is starting to look like the place it was when it first opened in 1939.
“This was a great place,” Larkin said. “It had a little bit of a problem, and it is a great place again.” The film is the brainchild of Selena Blake, a model and actress who has lived in the complex for nearly 20 years. “I want to raise public awareness that Queensbridge is not a bunch of thugs and drug dealers,” she said. Thinking the project would take a few weeks to film, Blake hired a camera crew at the cost of $1,000 a day. They lasted a week, until she could no longer afford to pay them and had to start filming on her own.
Two years later, Blake has compiled 75 hours of interviews with current and former Queensbridge residents, including state Supreme Court Judge Carol Robinson Edmead, Mark Samowitz of Broadway Stages sound stage, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan and hip-hop luminaries Nas (Nasir Jones), Havoc and Marlon (Marley Mar) Williams. It has not been easy. She works about 18 hours a day, both on the film and at various media and catering jobs. And she has sunk about $100,000 of her own money into the film, maxing out several credit cards and surviving several eviction notices in the process.
But every time she thinks about giving up, someone she’s interviewed calls her to tell her how thankful they are. “There’s a power that is higher than me navigating this project,” Blake said. “You’re not doing this by chance or mistake. You were meant to do this. The film is divided into three sections: past, present and future. It starts with old photographs and interviews with elderly former residents, most of whom are Jewish or Italian-American. The footage shows a place where children of different races played together in harmony, where poor children did not know they were poor and where white police officers were godparents to black children. “I think everyone should grow up in the projects,” one elderly woman says.
Then came Vietnam and the civil rights era, when heroin and later crack cocaine ripped the fabric of the community apart, when “white” friends became “whitey.” The film moves to a new generation of residents, mostly African-American, who learned not to trust the police. Queensbridge stopped looking like a rung on the ladder into the middle class. Blake herself was once caught in a shootout between police and gang members. “The most inspiration I had from Queensbridge was to get out of here,” says an interviewee who lived there at the time.
Even during the worst of times, Queensbridge has been an astonishing incubator of talent, from professional athletes and the originators of what became rap and hip hop, to ministers, actors, Harvard graduates and politicians. Larkin calls it “the sophistication of the street.”
“In many ways, the projects are a more evolved and developed form of civilization than the suburbs or rural areas,” he said. “There’s so much competition here that you have to stand out.” Views of the Manhattan skyline just across the East River, he added, no doubt spurs that drive. But these extraordinary stories have been for the most part buried under an avalanche of news about murders, gang wars and drug busts. That narrative has stuck, despite real change in the last decade. The narrative is that I’m going to walk in here and they’re going to kill me,” Larkin said, recalling his own thoughts when he first started visiting Queensbridge last year.
Blake’s documentary will change that. Both she and Larkin predict that the complex is about to come full circle. “Queensbridge is becoming a multicultural, multi-ethnic community where people respect one another,” she said. “I’m planting the seeds for change.”
Queensbridge: The Other Side Prior Events 1. WCBS Morning Show with Jim Ryan 3. Fox 5 Evening News included the documentary in their New York Minute 4. Brian Lehrer Radio February 24th 2006 1 Centre Street 6. Proclamation Award on August the 8th at City Hall from Honorable Yvette D. Clark for 8. Saint. 9. Real-Life: Pan African Festival of Documentary Films in 10. WBLS Hosted by Dahved Levy 11. CVM-TV 14. Caribbean Heritage Month @ Brooklyn Borough Hall 15. South Africa Radio 16. Big Brother Big Sister screening May 19th 2008 followed by Q&A Film Festivals Entered: 1. 35th New Director/New Film, Mar 22 - 2 APR 06 2. Brooklyn Film Festival April 19 to April 23 06 3. NYIIFV, May 4 - 11 May 06 4. Cannes, May 17 - 28 May 06 5. Real Life: A Pan-African Festival in Ghana May 20th - 26th 06 6. Newport International, Jun 6 - 11 June 06 7. African American woman in Film October 26th-28th 06 8. Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series Sept 27-29 2007 9. TriBeCa Film Festival April 25th - May 6th 07
2. Brian Lehrer T.V. Show January 18th @ 7:00 pm air live
Segment
5. New York City Housing Authority screening March 7th @ 250 Broadway 12th Floor,
followed by Q&A
Jamaica’s 44th Independence Day.
2006.
13. The Jamaican Consulate screening
Ambassador of
27th 2007screening followed by Q&A
www.sarfmradio.com
10. International Black Film Festival February 2008
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