One might wonder why a group of people that got together to save a local iconic film theater would get involved in raising money for a documentary about rap therapy for kids. The theater in question is Oakland’s beloved Parkway Theater, which shut down last year, and the documentary is the Beats Rhymes and Life Film Project, filmmaker Kerri Gawryn’s second film, which in an ideal world, she would want to premier in the re-opened Parkway. But first, the film needs to be finished. And second, the Parkway needs to re-open.
“We decided to fundraise to show that there’s still a group willing to support the theater,” says Peter Prato, community organizer who has been working with I Like the Parkway, a community group dedicated to facilitating the re-opening of the Parkway Theater, for the past year.
“It’s not too difficult a line to draw supporting a film that benefits our community by bringing attention to something positive in Oakland and the theater being reopened. It sends a clear signal to the city and anyone interested in opening a business that there’s a group of people in line ready to support the business when it opens,” he says.
And in a time when producers are looking at Oakland to be the backdrop for TV shows about pimps, this film is about something positive in Oakland – about a rap therapy after-school program in Oakland High School.
For this film – her first feature-length film -- Gawryn teamed up with Beats Rhymes and Life, an Oakland group of mental health professionals, educators and community artists that addresses the psychosocial needs of youth of color. She and her crew captured the stories of three of the after-school program’s participants on film.
“What surprised me was how willing the students were to work with us and how willing they were to come to the program every week,” says Gawryn. “It was an after-school program from 3.30 to 6.30 on Friday… I felt it was unrealistic to expect teenagers to come every single week. It was testament to how excited they were to be part of the program -- the youth kept coming every single week.”
She got a lot of footage of the characters she wanted to follow – 170 hours. She saw how the kids responded to rap therapy and learned to trust each other. They came from different schools, and didn’t know each other before they joined the program. By the end of it, they had developed strong bonds.
It was the story Gawryn had hoped to find when she had set out to make her film. She had begun her journey wanting to make a film that allowed teenagers to tell their stories themselves – their stories of they learned to cope with everything in their lives. She decided to use hip hop as the lens to tell the story through “I wanted something that would resonate with them, and thought of hip hop. Youth are drawn to it - it connects with young people. That was my inspiration for wanting to do a film around this concept.”
Kerri Gawryn
The San Francisco State graduate began researching youth programs around the Bay Area back in 2006 and was drawn to Oakland because of the sheer number and quality of the youth organizations that were based here. She met Tomas Alvarez, the founder of Beats, Rhymes and Life, in 2007 and they agreed to collaborate. So in 2009, when Alvarez got funded to run a year-long rap therapy program at Oakland High, she decided it was time to get the cameras rolling, with or without funds.
Grants, friends and family and other supporters helped her gather around $10,000. But she needs to raise around $50,000 to $60,000 just to get the job done. For her film to be perfect, she would need $100,000. The East Bay Community Foundation has offered a $10,000 matching grant toward the completion of the film. The deadline is March 15, and Gawryn is pulling out all the stops. So is the I Like the Parkway group, which is running a fundraising campaign to help Gawryn get to $5000. Its members are asking people to donate the price of a Parkway ticket -- $6 – to Gawryn’s film. And the big fundraiser bash is coming up, too, on March 12.
This could be a film like any other, but it’s becoming something bigger. Because to many in Oakland, like Peter Prato, this is a film that is a story of what Oakland really is, which is often very different from the Oakland seen in the paper’s headlines.
“It’s geared to an audience that loves Oakland as well as one that doesn’t know Oakland,” says Gawryn. Her film shows Oakland through the experience of the youth, she points out. It’s about how these kids, who do not come from the affluent parts of Oakland, are shaped not just by the violence they see but also by the strong and positive vibe of community and the desire for change around them.
For the Love – a hip hop soiree
Friday, March 12, 7 p.m., After party at 9.30 p.m.
The New Parish, 579 18th Street (at San Pablo)
Speakers include Pat Kernighan (District 2 Councilmember), Alicia Romero (Principal of Oakland High). Performances by A-Plus from Oakland-based Hip-Hop collective Hieroglyphics, Bicasso of Living Legends, DJs Platurn of Oakland Faders, and Pam the Funkstress from The Coup.
Tickets:$50 at Brown Paper Tickets ($25 for artists and teachers). All proceeds will go towards the completion of the film.
For more on the film and to see the trailer, please go to brlfilmproject.com
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