Événements

HAIR IN THE GATE: Featuring DMV Independent & Student Films
at 19:00. Presented by Parallel Film Collective.

Français

Parallel Film Collective presents our regular HAIR IN THE GATE Film Screening & DJ Music Mixer at RESTAURANT MARVIN with the #LocalEqualsGlobal sounds of our resident mixologist DJ Ausar. This June 24th, we’re featuring short films by DMV based independent and student filmmakers including from Howard U., American U. and GMU.

– « PORTRAIT » by Mark Jason Welch (MFA Film Alumnus, Howard University)

– « LIFE’S CHECKLIST » by Shayla Racquel (MFA Film & Electronic Media Student, American University)

– « CAFE KREYOL » directed by Scott Cooper (BA Alumnus in Film and Video Studies, George Mason University)

Plus Teasers:
– « RETURN TO RAMALLAH » by Ziad Foty
– « SILENT BRAVE » by Jami Ramberan

Support Local Indie Filmmakers at June 24th #HairInTheGate!

VENUE
RESTAURANT MARVIN
2007 14th St NW, Washington DC, 20009

The filmmakers

Mark Jason Welch | Writer. Director. Producer
Originally from Barbados, Mark Jason Welch has been featured on the BBC World Service Broadcast on Contemporary Caribbean Writing. His work has been anthologized alongside Elizabeth Nunez and Nobel Prize Winning Writer Derek Walcott in the publication ‘Beyond The Sangre Grande’. He has won the prestigious Frank Collymore Literary Endowment for his manuscript of poetry ‘Ackee Season’ and has been a featured performer at the Barbados ‘Crop Over’ Festival Spoken Word Event ‘Read-In’. In April of 2014 Mark Jason debuted his first play ‘LOVE!: IS THE PROVINCE OF THE BRAVE’ to critical and commercial success. Shortly after he graduated from the Department of Media, Film and Journalism at Howard University with an MFA in Film Production. His post – graduation film ‘Portrait’ is an Official Selection of the 2015 Jamaica International Film Festival. Mark continues to work ardently in music video, film and media production with production company Twelve14, most recently completing the high energy infectious dance track for JaRon The Fame ‘G.O.T.F – Get Off The Floor’ currently in rotation on VEVO.

The day Shayla Racquel, a MFA in Film and Electronic Media Student at American University fell in love with filmmaking was the day she saw beauty in life and she knew it should never be taken for granted. Diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease at birth and having a stroke at the young age of 12, her childhood battle with the disease is what brought her closer to the art of storytelling. Writing, creating and watching ideas come to life served as a getaway from her struggle with the disease, filling her with euphoria through the pain. Originally from Columbia, South Carolina, Shayla began to explore and hone her craft during her undergraduate years at Florida A&M University. She directed and edited numerous projects for businesses and organizations around the Tallahassee community. Her accolades include but are not short of: 1890 National Scholar, FAMU New Distinguished Scholar, Young & Relentless Scholar, American University Vision Award recipient, and Ridgewood Missionary Baptist Church Woman of the Year. Many news articles and blog sites speak of their eagerness to watch her growth in the film industry for the years to come.
Though « Life’s Checklist » is Shayla Racquel’s first short film, her award winning webseries « Quarter Century » has been making waves on Youtube. There are currently two seasons of « Quarter Century », the first featuring DC’s vibrant culture, while the second showcasing the liveliness of New York. She uses the series to support and promote Black owned businesses, indie music artists, and fashion designers.

Scott Cooper is a filmmaker and graphic designer currently living in Northern Virginia. After graduating from George Mason University with a BA in Film and Video Studies at Mason, he continues to pursue a career in filmmaking through the avenues of motion graphics and projection mapping. His latest film « Cafe Kreyol » was filmed and edited in his last semester at GMU and follows the story of local coffee hunter Joey Stazzone as he travels to ‪#‎Haiti‬, ‪#‎Colombia‬ and ‪#‎Honduras‬ finding ways that he can impact the world. Mixing ‪#‎animation‬ with live action, this film is a coming-of-age story about Stazzone, an ex-convict who once steeped in a life of crime, turns it all around and now works to empower local farmers in Latin America and the Caribbean after feeling called to action during the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Winning « Best of Fest » and numerous other awards at the film’s premiere, Scott is excited to screen this powerful documentary about hope and faith at Parallel Film Collective’s Hair In The Gate.

Ziad El-Bayoumi Foty is a DC native of Palestinian and Egyptian descent as well as a classically trained pianist and vocalist. He is a member of his family’s group Foty Fusion with whom he preforms and records traditional Palestinian music and Arabic fusion music.
Ziad is a graduate of Lafayette College where he completed a BA in English with a Film concentration. While at Lafayette, he spent time abroad at AUC The American University in Cairo where he engaged in rigorous Arabic language studies. Spending time in Egypt intensified his ambition to pursue an academic path in Film Studies with an emphasis on Arab representations. This pursuit led Ziad towards completion of his Masters of Philosophy in Film Theory and Criticism at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research dissertation, « A New Group of Palestinian-American Films: Salt of this Sea and Contrarian Representations of the Homeland » sought to position Annemarie Jacir’s film within an emerging trend of ‘accented films’ focused on portraying the Palestinian homeland through the perspective of Palestinian filmmakers.
In 2013, Ziad’s own short film « The Strange Ways of the Occident » was selected for the DC Palestine Film Festival and the Alwan Film Festival. And 2014, Ziad joined the MFA Film Program at Howard University. He is currently in post-production on his feature length documentary, Return To Ramallah: A Palestinian American Story about his father’s journey back home in June 2014 after 40 years away from Palestine.

Jami Ramberan is a filmmaker and educator. She holds a MFA in Film Production from Howard University and a MA in Media Studies from The New School. Jami has worked as a video and film director for the past six years in which she has directed and assistant directed several music videos, commercials and short films including a campaign commercial for Barack Obama that aired on a jumbotron in Times Square in 2007. She has produced a commercial for the luxury timepiece NKIRU watches in conjunction with Audi USA and Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation founded by Russell Simmons and Danny Simmons. She co-produced a provocative video on Sean Bell with award winning songwriter Aurora Nonas Barnes and produced a documentary on prison abuse.
Jami is the Co-Producer and Director of ENF Rangers, a kids media program that promotes multicultural youth to protect the environment. She creates projects that inject a message of social change into the center of popular consciousness. With that, her film « Silent Brave » focuses on the psychological effects of military sexual trauma. Currently, Jami lectures in Howard University – Media, Journalism & Film and teaches in the Literary, Media and Communications Department at Duke Ellington School of the Artst.
Partager :