Another White crew poor black children film

Monica Davis
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

EAST OF THE RIVER

I love when I get emails from kickstarter. The projects they love are usually the projects I support and love too. But yesterday I wasn’t to happy or amused about a short film sent to my inbox with their stamp of approval on it.

The film entitled East of the River. A film the filmmakers claim to be about teenagers coming of age in Washington DC looked great and very professional. Then as I scrolled to view the cast the photos I noticed they looked like the banned American Apparel ads that were borderlined child pornography.

I was especially saddened by the new found actor Malachi Mack. A 14 year old black boy who has some possible mental issues. In all the promotions he seems to be the comic relief but only to the amusement of non straight black men and eugenic puppeteers.

I was hoping I was over exaggerating but then as I scrolled the crowdfunding page I saw the 3rd perk for $15…pink buttons with the words “Let Boys Be Feminine" written on them. To me this seems a little too obvious that there will be no strong black male roles in this film.

The last and final thing that drove me to write this today was seeing Sundance Institute distribution guru Chris Horton endorse this film in the making. Sad.

My Kickstarter film critique:

With so much diversity here I almost cried (I’m being facetious). East of the River is a film about poor black children written, directed, edited, filmed, produced, and scored by no black people! Ooops I forgot to mention the black advisor they listed. Way to go!

Because this film in-the-making seems to sexualise black children I feel this is inappropriate and could cause serious offence to some film viewers. I wonder what is West of the river?

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