May 2020 Update – Progress During this Downtime

I hope this message finds everyone healthy and safe. Even though regulations are beginning to relax across the country, we are still in the first steps of a long road back. We hope that everyone has a successful return to their personal and business lives.

Although we are still reflecting deeply on the loss of Mamie Kirkland, the star of our film and a giant in our personal lives, we know that we have been blessed to have had her with us for so long. Her guiding light is still shining radiantly upon us and we are more committed than ever to finishing our project.

Our plans with the completion and release of 100 Years From Mississippi, like the plans of everyone else around the world have been altered by this pandemic. But we are still making great progress during this downtime. Our composer, Derek Nakamoto, is finishing up all of the music sketches for the film score. We also hired an archivist who is securing all of our high resolution photo and footage images to be edited into our final cut of the film. Our beginning conversations with potential distributors have gone silent, so we must remain patient in figuring out our distribution strategy. But there is much to be thankful for and excited about in the midst of this unprecedented moment.

We’ve already secured destinations to do the film’s postproduction work at two studios in San Francisco. Once business begins to open back up again we will be doing the post production video work at ZAP Zoetrope Aubry Productions and our post production sound work at the world famous Skywalker Studios. Our connection with both studios began over 45 years ago with two colleagues who were starting their public radio careers at the same time I was at KPFA-FM in Berkeley. Kim Aubry is now the head of ZAP Zoetrope Aubry Productions and Randy Thom is now the head of sound production at Skywalker Studios. These are two very exciting developments and whenever the work begins we will be ready and prepared to move forward.

“Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society.”

– Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution