February Newsletter Update

Hello and here's the latest:
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We are pleased to announce that we have been accepted to the Portland Oregon Women’s Festival (aka POWFest)! We’ll be helping to kick it off on opening night, screening with Abigail Disney’s documentary feature Armor of Light at 7:00 pm on March 3rd. We are in such good company! Info and tickets here. 

We now have the details on our festival premiere at Portland International Film Festival. We’ll be screening as part of the Shortcuts V: Made In Oregon program on February 22nd at 1 p.m. and February 20th at 6 p.m. Details here.

The Lilla Jewel Award
I am very humbled to have been chosen as the recipient of the 2016 Lilla Jewel Artist Award by the MRG Foundation. In addition to the honor of being acknowledged for my work, I'll be introducing and screening a clip of Sista in the Brotherhood as part of the MRG Foundation’s Justice Within Reach event on April 2nd in Portland as well as in Southern Oregon in August. I share this award with so many who contributed to the film. Learn more about this very progressive foundation and the award here. 

In Case You Missed It
You can catch an oh-so brief interview with me on local Portland radio on KBOO's The Film Show here with Portland International Film Festival folks. The segment starts about 15 minutes in. 
 
Related News
On February 24th, lead actor from the film, Sidony O’neal will be strutting her stuff on the runway in the Tradeswomen Fashion Show! The sponsored event is now sold out, but I'm working to develop a live stream if you want to watch. Check the event page for details. It will be a night of celebrating tradeswomen and fundraising for Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. Sponsors include Dapper D and Wildfang. 
 
Dr. Roberta Hunte and Director Kate Ming Tien Duffly of Reed College just received a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant. Their theater project We are Brave will collect and dramatize reproductive stories from communities of color, and is a collaboration with Western States Center and their We are BRAVE (Building Reproductive Autonomy and Voices for Equity) initiative. This looks to be an amazing project!
 
Our lead actor, Sidony O’neal, has been selected to participate this spring in PICA's Creative Exchange Lab, a residency for international artists "to promote artistic exchange, foster the development of new work, nurture research and creative process, and instigate peer-to-peer dialogue".
 
In June 2016, Sidony will also travel to Finland to participate in an artist residency at Arteles Creative Center where she will continue working on new performance and creative research projects.

Our Kjerstin Johnson, Co-Writer of our film, has a new short story, "Alabama,"published in Moss: An Online Journal of the Northwest. Check it out!

One of our supporting actors in the film, Scott Mullin has a few projects in the works including his ongoing podcast, blog and upcoming documentary film. You can learn more about his projects here. 

We're lucky to have a talented group of folks as part of our team. Thanks for reading and come say hi at one of these upcoming screenings!

Dawn Jones Redstone
Director, Sista in the Brotherhood

P.S. I'm including a couple of pics from production below just for fun.

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Production Assistant Katie Hughes recreates a wood stack from a photo during filming. Just a small sampling of the many important tasks our PA's performed over the course of the shoot!

Lead Sidony O'neal standing next to her stunt double Tia Vonil. Tia is an electrician and came by to help out as needed. Turned out, Sidony had trained so hard as a carpenter, we barely needed Tia. Tia's hands appear twice for a total of two seconds in the film. Thanks, Tia!