Thanks to Aspen FilmFest!

A big thanks to the excellent folks at Aspen FilmFest for screening Brownstones last week and for bringing nearly 100 students to the show! We're planning a special video Q&A with some of the local schools later this fall. More details to come on that!

And here's some additional press from the festival:

Directors LaMattina and Walker follow sixth-graders from an elementary school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., which as recently as 2005 was declared an “impact zone” due to the excessive violence in the community, who were paired with students in war-town Sierra Leone for a school year-long pen-pal program.

“Usually movies that have anything to do with Africa are all about shock value and people’s limbs getting cut off with machetes,” Walker said. “But for me, personally, when I see that type of stuff, I shut down because the problem is too big. So we made a conscious effort to not use footage like that, and just let the kids tell their story. Which, I think, is more powerful.”

Brownstones in the Aspen Daily News

Damien Williamson over at Aspen Daily News gave Brownstones a very nice shout-out is his festival preview story:

But it is perhaps in the quieter films, like “Brownstones to Red Dirt,” that the true character of Filmfest emerges. In the movie, sixth-graders from an elementary school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., which as recently as 2005 was declared an “impact zone” due to the excessive violence in the community, were paired with students in war-town Sierra Leone for a pen-pal program.

Co-director Dave LaMattina had been working in an animation studio, and was looking for “a project with a little more meaning.”

“I had done a film in South Africa on kids with HIV and AIDS,” LaMattina says. “So I was looking for something along those lines. And what I really wanted to do was find a story where there was hope in a community where you wouldn’t expect it.”

The results were astounding. The kids in Bed-Stuy were able to gain perspective on their own lives through interactions with the orphaned children that struggled for food, water and electricity — though who still had similar goals and aspirations — in Sierra Leone. And the African children gained something that had been denied them for most of their lives: someone who cared.

Countdown to Aspen FilmFest!

In just five short days, Brownstones to Red Dirt will be one of just twenty films to screen at the 32nd annual Aspen FilmFest. All of the screening details are here. We are so excited to be a part of this truly independent festival that aims to focus on the "human spirit." As the festival's Artistic Director Laura Thielen recently told the Aspen Daily News, "We tend to look at ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

That's exactly how we see the kids that star in Brownstones - Balla, Emmanuel, Augusta, Abdul, Fred, Destiny, Malik and Isaiah. They are ordinary kids doing extraordinary things, as they reach out and offer their hearts to strangers on the other side of the world.

Thank you RIFF!

Hey everyone! Happy summer! We just wanted to thank the Rhode Island Film Festival for screening Brownstones this week. The festival is the largest public film event in New England with more than 200 films this year. Check out all of the details here.

We are really honored to be a part of it – even though we aren’t able to be there! We're incredibly disappointed to miss the other films and festivities.

There are lots of exciting things coming up though, including a screening in Bed-Stuy this fall and the construction of the school is Sierra Leone. Many more details to come!

Brownstones Honored at Seattle Film Fest

We have exciting news! Of the 54 documentaries at the Seattle International Film Festival, Brownstones was third runner up for the Golden Space Needle Audience Award for documentaries. And we were in excellent company.

Restrepo, a film by Sebastian Junger (of A Perfect Storm fame), was fourth runner up and Waiting for Superman by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) was in the Top 10. We feel honored to be named among these remarkable documentaries.

The documentary awards are below and the complete list is here:

Best Documentary Golden Space Needle Award
(tie) “Ginny Ruffner: A Not So Still Life,” Karen Stanton and "Waste Land,” Lucy Walker

First runner up: “The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls,” Leanne Pooley

Second runner up: “Wheedle's Groove,” Jennifer Maas

Third runner up: “Brownstones to Red Dirt,” Dave LaMattina and Chad N. Walker

Fourth runner up: “Restrepo,” Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington

Top 10: “Marwencol” (Jeff Malmberg), “Waiting for ‘Superman’” (Davis
Guggenheim), “Chihuly Fire & Light” (Peter West), “American: The Bill Hicks Story” (Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas), “Mugabe and the White African” (Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson)

Thanks Brooklyn!

The 13th annual Brooklyn International Film Fest closed last night with an excellent party at Dram in Williamsburg. Many thanks to the organizers for including Brownstones in all of the fun! If you missed our two screenings, stay tuned, we've got plans to show the film again in Brooklyn at summer's end.

Also, a big thanks to Nick Shimkin of the Kings County Cinema Society for his help in getting the word out about Brownstones. His group does weekly film screenings throughout Brooklyn and keeps tabs on fun, free events throughout the borough. Get on his mailing list here!

Malik to Brooklyn: You Can Google Me

We were joined by some very special guests this past Saturday at our Brooklyn premiere:

*Diamond Saj (above center, red plaid shirt), the Salone rap artist who recorded the beautiful track at the end of the documentary, Children of the Universe.

*Malik, one of our Bed-Stuy pen pals (above, second from right). Malik joined us for the Q&A after the show and the audience asked him tons of questions, from his impressions of Sierra Leone to his plans for the future. He cheerily answered them all (in a much deeper voice – he's 13 now) and was sure to inform the crowd: "You can Google me!" Already a businessman. Ha!

*6th graders from the School for the Urban Environment, the Bed-Stuy school featured in Brownstones. The kids passed out postcards after the film to let people know we're raising money to build a new library there.

We also got to meet Ishmael Islam (above, far right) who screened his sweet short, Departure from a Love, after Brownstones. Ishmael took part in Reel Works Teen Filmmaking program and is now a student at Pratt.

Thanks to everyone for coming out in the heat! (And to Henry Street Ale House for letting us stay awhile). It was a great night!