Hey all,
my good friend/sometimes music collaborator/fellow cinephile/all around good guy: Mtume Gant (also an actor whose appeared in films like Hurricane Streets, Bringing Out The Dead & Carlito's Way 2: Rise To Power) is making a short film called Spit!
In the filmmakers own words -
Spit is an attempt to unpack the experience that so many artists fall victim to. It follows Jeremiah “Monk-One” Sinclair, an underground NY Hip Hop artist, as he reaches the conclusion to let his vocation go simply because he feels it causes him more pain to practice and “starve” for his art than to persevere. But unlike normal films where we watch the lead character go through their trial like a silent intruder, Spit will take a different perspective. It will be a point-of-view film, totally from the eyes of Monk-One. Inspired by the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, his masterpiece The Mirror in particular, the film will focus less on narrative and will instead aim to be an experience of life through heartbeat and breath. Using the camera as his eyes and brain, we shall witness his viewpoint as he navigates faithlessness, race, gender roles, manhood, and American capitalism’s stranglehold over artistic expression, all within the beast that is New York. It is an homage to all the artists who struggle in silence and all those who disappear in the struggle, leaving us to wonder where they’ve gone.
With the release of recent films like Beats, Rhymes & Life, Life Is Illmatic, Russian Winter & Jamel Shabazz: Street Photographer, hip-hop is slowly falling into a mini-renaissance within independent film and breaking away from the stigma & negative stereotypes that many people have towards the culture (especially when it comes to film). It's also time to explore hip-hop on the big screen beyond the typical subjects like The Notorious B.I.G. & Tupac Shakur.
Right now he has an indiegogo campaign going on and he's already reached 92% of his goal.
Below is a link to the indiegogo site for you to contribute whatever you can (if you donate $75 dollars you get to hang with myself & Mtume for a screening of two rare/underrated films and nerd out in movie talk afterwards)
