Join Synchronicity Theatre and BronzeLens Film Festival "In the Theatre" for this special one-night event! Four short films will explore what it means for lives to take flight.
BlacKorea
Directed by Christine Swanson, based on the true story by Patti Kim Gill
The story is set in the late 1980s in Chicago. Two children, born to a Korean mother and African-American father, are forced to live with the tangled consequences of their parent’s decisions, while struggling to traverse a new life in the Windy City. Runtime: 20 minutes
GLITCH: Escaping Plato’s Cave
Presented by Dance Canvas on Film
Created and Choreographed by Thulani Vereen, in partnership with GA Tech professor Dr. Francesco Fedele for Georgia Tech’s Science.Art.Wonder program, and inspired by the Allegory of Plato’s Cave, this short film uses movement to show the journey to the true nature of being. Runtime: 7 minutes.
The Ball Method
Directed by Dagmawi Abebe, Written by Dagmawi Abebe and Javier Carmona
Alice Ball, a 23 year-old African American Chemist living in 1915 Hawaii fights against racial and gender barriers to find an effective treatment for leprosy before Kalani, a 10-year-old patient is exiled into the leper colony of Molokai. Runtime: 19 minutes
Flight
By Kia Moses, Directed by Kia Moses & Adrian McDonald
A Jamaican boy sets out on a dream, ten times his size, to fly to the moon, despite his circumstances and opposition from his father. Runtime: 13 minutes
ABOUT BRONZELENS
Since its founding in 2009, the festival has been dedicated to bringing both national and worldwide attention to Atlanta, as a center for film and film production for people of color. Over the years, BronzeLens has hosted and honored high-caliber and rising talent including filmmakers/producers Ava DuVernay, Roger Bobb, Will Packer, Rob Hardy, Suzanne de Passe, Lisa Cortes, Stephanie Allain, Nina Yang Bongiovi, film and television executives Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Connie Orlando, Sheila Johnson, actors Queen Latifah, Regina Hall, Lynn Whitfield, Margaret Avery, Issa Rae, and Keith David, just to name a few. The festival's accomplishments include being designated an Academy Awards® Qualifying Festival in the Shorts category, honored in Atlanta Magazine's "Best Of" awards in the categories of Best Showcase for New Filmmakers and Best Place to Break into the Film Industry, producing an industry lauded annual signature Women’s SuperStar Luncheon celebrating both trailblazing and emerging talent, along with the distinction of being invited by Ava DuVernay to be a charter member of her independent distribution arm AFFRM (now ARRAY). BronzeLens also has a partnership with Reel South which seeks short documentaries from the southern region of the United to air on PBS platforms.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Thulani Anathi Vereen is a full-stack software engineer. Thulani is a 2020 graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science. In her time, Spelman, she merged her passions for Computer Science and Dance through award-winning research implementation projects. She is interested in how dance and computer science can inform one another. It is through this interest that Thulani applies algorithmic thought processes from her computer science studies to her choreographic process and in return, her dance pedagogy to her technology projects, the moment, Thulani is using her career as an engineer to strengthen her technical practice and aptitude while also accepting and making any creative opportunity to continue to develop as a choreographer. As a budding engineer and artist, Thulani aims to eventually become an artist-inventor, revolutionizing the performing arts by inventing performing arts technologies for all facets of the industry. Thulani was selected as one of the Inaugural choreographers for Dance Canvas/Atlanta Contemporary's 2020 Summer Choreographic Residency. She also worked with Dance Canvas on a dance film, entitled "GLITCH: Escaping Plato's Cave", which was created in partnership with Georgia Tech's Science.Art.Wonder program.
Kia Moses, Screenwriter & Film Director, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer Of TCP Those Creative People ‘Jamerican’ Kia Moses was born, Howard University Hospital, Washington D.C., and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, where she still resides. In 2007, she graduated with a BFA (Honors) in Advertising from The School Of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York and was ranked in the ‘top 100 Advertising Students in the U.S.’. After working, ad agencies from New York to London, Kia returned home where she co-founded TCP Those Creative People/TCP Tings. A creative ideas and product innovation company specializing in Jamaican greeting cards, stationery, tote bags and novelty gifts – using Jamaican culture. Kia made her screenwriting and directorial debut with "Flight" in 2018. The co-directed Jamaican short film won 17 awards, festivals worldwide, was the 2019 Diversity In Cannes winner, selected for a special screening during Cannes Film Festival, one of 5 finalists, the 2019 American Black Film Festival and currently has a 2-year licensing agreement with HBO. Since then, Kia has gone on to direct music videos, TV ads, branded content and is currently working on her first feature script. In February of 2020, she was selected by HBO to shadow a director on HBO’s "A Black Lady Sketch Show" in Los Angeles and also represented Jamaica as a judge in the ‘Direction’ category of the esteemed 58th Annual D&AD Awards in London, UK in May. Her hobbies include reading, writing poetry, research, photography and confidently screaming out wrong answers, Jeopardy. Of all the creative projects she has had the privilege of being a part of, her proudest is by far – the birth of her daughter in 2020. Learn more at flightthefilm.com.