Brownstones to Red Dirt is a film about two groups of grade school students that are pen pals with each other. One group is from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, NY, USA. The other is from Freetown, Sierra Leone. The children from Bed-Stuy are living in a neighborhood which has been historically known for high rates of crime, especially murder as well as poverty. The school children from Bed-Stuy attended the Urban Environment School that was built in between two housing projects. This school was designed to provide an enriching educational environment that would not have been available otherwise. The Freetown kids were mostly orphans of civil war and attended the Children In Crisis School that was run by three Auntys, one of whom had originally rescued many of the children during the war. The Children In Crisis school was a safe haven for these children, but was overcrowded and lacking greatly in materials, food, water and medicine.
The children from both countries created strong bonds with their pen pals and learned more about each-other's situations. One really positive aspect of the sharing was that the kids in Bed-Stuy felt motivated to reach out to the kids of Freetown by hosting a fundraiser for the Children in Crisis school. They ended up raising about $1000 and providing serious aid to their pen pals. This funding was able to provide bedding, medicine and educational resources. I think that this helped show how even in the position of a child in an area known for poverty you can still make an impact and create a change for social justice that you care about. It also shows that there is a need for unity among all peoples. Malik, one of the students from Bed-Stuy's closing words of the film say it well. "People. Friends. Other countries. Tokyo. Sure I’m black. Sure you’re black. Sure you’re white. Sure you’re Spanish. Sure you’re Hindi. Doesn’t matter. We’re still people."
A few of the other Bed-Stuy kids address race briefly. Fred, who is African-American says he feels stereotyped against because he is black. He says that people assume that he fights and gets into trouble and that he is just "a black piece of dirt." He also was hesitant to begin skateboarding, his now favorite hobby, because he thought it was something that only white people did.
This film passed the Bechdel test for gender and for race. In fact I do not recall anyone in the film who was not a person of color. Though on screen we saw communities of color being represented, I feel that it should be noted that the director and writer (who were also producers for this film) were both white men. Not to degrade any of the work that they have done but to be aware of the fact that even when people of color and women are represented on screen they are not often behind the screen in positions of power. In the case of this documentary even though people of color and women are telling their story, the are still seen through the lens of white males.
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Malik in Brownstones to Red Dirt (Dir. LaMattina, Walker, 2010)
I too watched this film at SIFF and thoroughly enjoyed it in both content and form, though there were a few things that made me question the integrity of it creators. As you mentioned above, though this film largely represented communities of color, their representation was through the lens of a white camera and therefore through the ideals of a white man. When the film was over it was shocking to me to learn that the film was directed and produced by two white males. Another thing that made me reconsider the film is the fact that the directors thought that to maintain the "authenticity" of the relationships between the children they should never meet in person, despite the fact that they had formed such solid, trusting relationships. I also believe that if these filmmakers were truly passionate about their cause they would donate all proceeds of the film to children in crisis in Sierra Leone. If this film is not followed up by any acts to help these children or raise awareness about this problem, i cannot help but consider this film as an exploitation for profit.
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