HollyShorts - My America
An Uber-perspective on today's divided America. One episode for each of the six days leading up to the election.
Interview with Filmmakers Anna Jones and Jamel Davall
Watch My America here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We made our web series last year – writing it in the summer and fall of 2016, and shooting & editing it in late October/early November in order to release the series across the five days leading up to November 8th and on the election day. We wrote it as a response to the chaotic politics of that time in order to find a catharsis and make sense of the complicated political system from an everyday standpoint.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This film represents a wide array of political and cultural viewpoints that represent the wider fabric of America. We hope that people watching it will find something of themselves on screen and/or echoes of their friends, family & neighbors’ points of view. It’s a time capsule of those six chaotic days before the new political era we now find ourselves in...
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
It's a set of specific stories about specific people in and visiting LA, but we've found so far that people around the world can relate to it. The specifics of each character reveal the individual yet their social type helps them translate to a wider level as well. The series is really about identity, cultural and political values and conversation - and how we might be changed by exposure to one another.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
It was fascinating how much the script and film continued to evolve from the first draft all the way through post-production. It began as a non-political idea about Uber rides and strangers encountering one another in a semi-home like setting, but it couldn't help but become political in these times. It continued to evolve across the writing period and during the shoot in order to stay as relevant as possible.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
We've been delighted by the positive reception from people who've seen it and how engaged people are. This was one of our favourites that came to Sophia Jennings, one of our producers: "Samuel Beckett's seven famous words come to me: I can't go on.I go on. This production is significant... good work."
Many people have really responded to our two main characters - Carmen, our senior citizen thinking about voting for Trump, which has surprised & disturbed them, and to Lucian, the everyman driver dealing with the chaos of all the politics he has to encounter in the back of his car. At Hollyshorts recently, a couple behind us during episode 3, "Never Talk Politics with a Texan", gave a blow by blow account of everything that was happening as they saw it unfold which was really satisfying to experience as filmmakers!
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
We'd like the series to find an increasingly wide and broad audience, and haven't yet received much feedback from people on the "right" side of the spectrum - although we have enjoyed hearing that the series is resonating with both young and old people both in the US and other countries. We were up close and personal with it for several months before we shared it, so to let it go and have people respond to it. It's been interesting watching it a year on almost at the LA Film Festival in June and Hollyshorts this month - and powerful (and disturbing) how much it still resonates with audiences now.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We are delighted to be on www.wearemovingstories.com and are open to anything coming from it - more tests, more distribution, more press - to aid more people seeing it and starting conversations. Compared to theatre - the discipline we come from - it's satisfying having made a set of films that now live on the internet and people can continue to watch at different times.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
Anyone who can help spread the word about our first season - journalists, festival directors, distributors - and anyone who might be interested in talking to us about a second season which we are interested in doing, and have been starting conversations with partners about.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We'd like MY AMERICA to start conversations with people - for people to look back at this moment in time just before the election in which people were slightly less entrenched in their positions with a little room for doubt - and be open to one another.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
How can we co-exist with different values (and not beat each other in the head)?!
Would you like to add anything else?
Watch the series here: www.myamericaseries.com
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
Jamel and Anna are working on ideas for a second iteration of the series; we're also working on various longer form ideas and shooting a short in the UK with Riley Productions that is a fantasy inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream - very different in tone!
Interview: August 2017
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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series and music video. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
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MY AMERICA
An Uber-perspective on today's divided America. One episode for each of the six days leading up to the election.
Length: 38 mins total (each episode 5-8 mins)
Director: Anna Jones (lead director), Asaad Kelada
Producer: Sophia Jennings, Roweena Mackay, Line producer: Lily Campbell; Associate
Producer: Liam Murphy
About the writer, director and producer:
Writers/EPs/Lead actor/Lead director: Jamel Davall is from New York. Anna Jones is from London. Their production company together in theatre and film is called NYLon. Jamel and Anna met at the Yale School of Drama and first worked together on the premiere of Tarell McCraney's IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER.
Asaad Kelada is a veteran TV director who has directed many different shows including THE OFFICE and WHO's THE BOSS?
Producer Sophia Jennings is a Creative Executive at The Creative Studio in LA and was formerly at Picrow. Producer Roweena Mackay is a freelance producer in the Bay area. She just worked on Boot Riley's SORRY TO BOTHER YOU. She met Anna & Jamel at the Yale School of Drama and co-ran site-specific and political theatre company Bone Orchard with Anna in New York for several years following graduation.
Key cast:
Carmen Argenziano, Bernardo Cubria, Jamel Davall, Bridget Jones, McKenna Kerrigan, Peter Macon, Eric Ramey, Elizabeth Sung, Amy Waller
Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists): Film festival directors, journalists, distributors
Social media handles: @myamericaseries
Facebook: www.facebook.com/myamericaseries/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/myamericaseries?lang=en @annagjones7
Instagram: @myamericaseries @annagabriellajones
Funders:
Indiegogo supporters, Picrow (in-kind production support), Creative Visions (fiscal sponsors)