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NE Residents Premiere Short Film ‘Sista in the Brotherhood’ to raise Profile of African American Tradeswomen.
October 2015 – Filmmaker/journey-level carpenter Dawn Jones Redstone and academic/author Dr. Roberta Hunte premiered their 20 min short film, Sista in the Brotherhood at Clinton Street Theater on Oct 20th at 6 pm to a sold out, largely tradeswoman crowd as part of Oregon Tradeswomen's Social Hour.
The story tracks a black, apprentice carpenter, played by Sidony O’neal, struggling to prove herself on her first day at a new job site. An outlier in a white, male-dominated workforce, she’s forced to navigate the crew’s reactions to her, and ultimately, either make a stand or risk never being recognized as the skilled worker she has become.
Based on themes from Hunte’s research on black tradeswomen, the film brings to light the experience of many women and people of color in a male dominated industry like construction. These stories are rarely seen on the big screen or mainstream media. The original script was written by Dawn Jones Redstone and Kjerstin Johnson.
Of the project, the director Jones Redstone says: “We’re both very aware of the role popular culture has on our perceptions of the work women love to do. By making a narrative film, we know that we can reach many more people with our message of the tradeswoman experience and in particular the tradeswoman of color experience.”
What is it like to be a black woman working in construction? Nationally, women make up 3 percent of trades apprentices. In Oregon, due to the efforts of pre-apprenticeship training programs like Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., a Northeast Portland based non-profit which prepares women for careers in the trades, and the advocacy of community partners for community benefits agreements on federally funded construction jobs, approximately 7 percent of apprentices are women. Black women across the U.S. remain a small number of the trades workforce at approximately .4 percent. Institutionalized sexism and racism continue to impact the low numbers of women in the trades. This film seeks to highlight these issues.
Hunte and Jones Redstone successfully sought to make the film with an all female crew including 50% women of color. With so few women in front of and behind the camera--relative to the gender makeup of moviegoers, it was an important part of the mission of the film.
Jones Redstone and Hunte, funded the project through a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $13,000. Jones Redstone worked in the trades for six years before working as a trainer helping to prepare women for living wage careers in construction. Most recently, she started Hearts+Sparks Productions to become a filmmaker full time. Hunte collaborated with playwright/director Bonnie Ratner to write and produce the play ‘My Walk Has Never Been Average’, based on black tradeswomen narratives from her research. The short film, ‘Sista in the Brotherhood’, and the play ‘My Walk’ are both efforts to bring more images of tradeswomen and tradeswomen’s stories into popular media.
Kjerstin Johnson is former Editor in Chief of Bitch Magazine.
‘Sista’ stars Sidony O’Neal, Joshua Rice, Scott Mullin, Terry Lybecker, David Knell, and Jocelyn Seid.
Online screener available upon request.
NE Residents Premiere Short Film ‘Sista in the Brotherhood’ to raise Profile of African American Tradeswomen.
October 2015 – Filmmaker/journey-level carpenter Dawn Jones Redstone and academic/author Dr. Roberta Hunte premiered their 20 min short film, Sista in the Brotherhood at Clinton Street Theater on Oct 20th at 6 pm to a sold out, largely tradeswoman crowd as part of Oregon Tradeswomen's Social Hour.
The story tracks a black, apprentice carpenter, played by Sidony O’neal, struggling to prove herself on her first day at a new job site. An outlier in a white, male-dominated workforce, she’s forced to navigate the crew’s reactions to her, and ultimately, either make a stand or risk never being recognized as the skilled worker she has become.
Based on themes from Hunte’s research on black tradeswomen, the film brings to light the experience of many women and people of color in a male dominated industry like construction. These stories are rarely seen on the big screen or mainstream media. The original script was written by Dawn Jones Redstone and Kjerstin Johnson.
Of the project, the director Jones Redstone says: “We’re both very aware of the role popular culture has on our perceptions of the work women love to do. By making a narrative film, we know that we can reach many more people with our message of the tradeswoman experience and in particular the tradeswoman of color experience.”
What is it like to be a black woman working in construction? Nationally, women make up 3 percent of trades apprentices. In Oregon, due to the efforts of pre-apprenticeship training programs like Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., a Northeast Portland based non-profit which prepares women for careers in the trades, and the advocacy of community partners for community benefits agreements on federally funded construction jobs, approximately 7 percent of apprentices are women. Black women across the U.S. remain a small number of the trades workforce at approximately .4 percent. Institutionalized sexism and racism continue to impact the low numbers of women in the trades. This film seeks to highlight these issues.
Hunte and Jones Redstone successfully sought to make the film with an all female crew including 50% women of color. With so few women in front of and behind the camera--relative to the gender makeup of moviegoers, it was an important part of the mission of the film.
Jones Redstone and Hunte, funded the project through a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $13,000. Jones Redstone worked in the trades for six years before working as a trainer helping to prepare women for living wage careers in construction. Most recently, she started Hearts+Sparks Productions to become a filmmaker full time. Hunte collaborated with playwright/director Bonnie Ratner to write and produce the play ‘My Walk Has Never Been Average’, based on black tradeswomen narratives from her research. The short film, ‘Sista in the Brotherhood’, and the play ‘My Walk’ are both efforts to bring more images of tradeswomen and tradeswomen’s stories into popular media.
Kjerstin Johnson is former Editor in Chief of Bitch Magazine.
‘Sista’ stars Sidony O’Neal, Joshua Rice, Scott Mullin, Terry Lybecker, David Knell, and Jocelyn Seid.