Wow, time has flown since my last update. Between personal travel, two weddings (congrats everyone!), and many projects a ton has happened! Back on September 14th Lakay had its world festival premiere at the 7th Annual Harlem International Film Festival!
Harlem was a great time, we sported our "Made in Haiti" shirts and got plenty of love just walking down the street! We also made a ton of friends while out there including Nick Julius (on the right in the picture below), who is a great guy overall. You may have seen him playing the role of Gino on "Boardwalk Empire," he described his character as 'the one always to Al Capone's right side.' Very cool, and great guy!
Nick's short film "The Devil Goes Down" ended up winning Best Narrative Short at the festival! It stars Michael Kenneth Williams of Boardwalk Empire, 12 Years a Slave, The Road, Gone Baby Gone, The Wire, and even had a multiple episode spot on one of my favorite tv shows Community! He's seriously been everywhere and is equally versed in comedy and drama. One of those types that just owns the screen whenever you see him in anything. Check out the trailer to The Devil Goes Down:
Some of the other friends we met were Mozell Miley-Bailey of Angeles City Films who's short film "Buoyancy" had it's world premiere. The lead in Buoyancy, Camille Shandle, was a pleasure to talk with and witness the excitement buzzing around their entire cast and crew that showed up to the premiere. Check out the trailer for Buoyancy.
It was also great talking to Anquenitta Williams and Big Spence of "Set Me Free" which has also won a TON of awards. Definitely keep an eye out for this group of filmmakers, I have a feeling you're going to be hearing more from them soon. Check out the trailer for Set Me Free:
Finally, on closing day, it was time for the Lakay world festival premiere! We had a great crowd that got very into the movie, there really is no experience like seeing a film you worked on with an audience and having them react exactly as you hoped they would!
One of the guests in attendance was Ingrid Hadasah of Harlem World Mag. She did a fantastic write up of Lakay, from an editor's standpoint, she was right with my intentions in telling the story. She had many touching quotes throughout the article but perhaps her ending quote is my favorite:
Lakay is an open letter to American Haitians, a love letter to Haiti, but mainly the truth in moving pictures to all the world. It’s a world culture requirement for a must – see.
That marked the first leg of a very busy couple of months for me. An incredibly successful trip, met some great people that I hope to keep in touch with, and FINALLY got Lakay in front of some eyes! I edited together a short video of people's reactions when leaving the screening, watch it below!