Tenderness_2 A Crowing Hen first film I saw-when a child-that spoke to my creative spirit...was Black Orpheus, for its portrayal of black people in the diaspora (though I couldn’t know that world existed)and of our diversity. That we could exist somewhere else and speak another language...and be portrayed as beautiful on the big screen, was powerful for a 10 year old black girl, growing up under the shadow of the Hollywood sign on the hill. Another significant experience as a child growing up in Santa Monica, was the fact that the Academy Awards took place there...at the Santa Monica Auditorium. We children from the neighboring black community would get on our sting-ray bikes and head down...hang out in the parking lot chatting up the drivers of the limos...asking all kinda questions about the celebrities. We would then wait along the red carpet beyond the view of cameras and beg to touch, stroke, hold the oscars of the "white" actors and actresses. Leaving our grimy little prints all over it. Imagine! One great moment was meeting and receiving a kiss on the cheek from Louis Armstrong as we stuck our arms through a chain link fence that he approached to acknowledge us as he was about to enter the (back) entrance of the auditorium.
Directors
cocorice promo ..
The bulk of my production history is definitively not main stream, but stream of consciousness:Work in Progress: Bouki: Blues from the African Sahel this work is a beautiful homage to a diverse community of known and unknown African musicians whose music styles reflect a direct influence on the American blues. Musicians featured are from rural and urban Senegal, Mauritania and Mali. This will be my first feature that I hope to screen at the 2009 FESPACO in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa. I also hope to have it picked up for distribution through francophone and other european TV/Cable markets. I have been working on it since 2001 and it features interviews with American musician Taj Mahal, and Poet/Activist Amiri Baraka. I may add comments by noteworthy ethnomusicologists. also: Yonges Island, a personal story about family and inherited land in South Carolina. A discovery of the politics of identity and re-development in the South.expect it to be 30-45 minutes.1989 No Justice No Peace (video 14 minutes) interviews with young black males looking back on the Rodney King trial and uprising.1990 Who Are You? An Oakland Story (5 minutes, shot on film, edited in video) Explores the story of a black woman in the community who wears white pancake makeup in an effort to cover up her blackness.1991 Drive By Shoot! 14 minutes An experimental video essay looking at the notion of drive-by shootings in black communities across America. Images fuse with random images shot of West African landscapes. 1992 Don’t Hurry Back...30 mins A memoir about travel to West Africa with my daughters and the impact that it had on each of us about identity and notions of "home".1995/6 Paul in the Window (5 minute short conceptual loop) A tableau that uses notes from a travel diary, a recorded telephone discussion with a girlfriend about my attraction to a new lover and news that signifies both vulnerability and envy of black males.1995/6 Exhausted! (5 minute time lapse video) Humorous, yet poignant portrait of my mother commanding my kitchen and our lives, during a visit. Tenderness, 2003- (3-5 minutes digital video, found film footage) A poetic memoir of a friend in 3 acts. It involves some performance, my voice and writing. I have been reworking this small piece since 2003 and completed a newer version in 2006, but hope to develop it as a trilogy using additional images and performances of my own inter cut with the found material. I would also like
Awards
Received a Creative Capital Award in 2000, its pilot year, to make "Yonges Island," a work in progress.
I’ve been nominated about 5 times for a Rockefeller Fellowship and have never been awarded one.
Festivals
Video projection of "Who Are You? An Oakland Story" was featured in the outdoor Gardens at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in May 2008.
Portia's Interests
General
Nichiren Buddhism (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo), The Arts and Humanities, world musics, Documentary films, histories, travel, The many African Diaspora, Human Rights, Family dynamics, Photography, Book Arts, etc, etc
Music
Old School Reggae and some of the new stuff from the Marley sibblings ( Damien and Stephan), Jazz-especially the blue note years, African traditional musics (Ali Farka Toure, Tumani Diabate, Mbilia Bell, Zap Mama, Youssou N'Dour), New Urban Soul ( Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Ledisi, Angie Stone).
Movies
(African films) Bamako by Abderrahmane Sisakko, Guimba the Tyrant by Chieck Sissoko, Black Girl and Ceddo by Ousmanne Sembene, Le Franc and Hyenas by Djibril Mambety...Films from Black British Women Directors, The Body Beautiful by N'Gozi Onwurah, Home Away From Home by Maureen Blackwood, Dreaming Rivers by Martine Attille. Salaam Bombay and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love by Mira Nair, Cycles by Zeinabu Davis, Bush Mama by Haile Gerima, Eve's Bayou by Kasi Lemmons, Sugar Cane Alley, by Euzhan Palcy.
Television
The Wire, though I didn't keep up. Reality series featuring Salt and Pepa, Run's House, The first 48 (crime investigation series), CNN news right now because of the elections.
Books
The Famished Road by Ben Okri, as well as his book of poetry (title escapes me now),So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba, The Bluest Eye, Sula and Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, All About Love by bell hooks, The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, by Aime Cesaire. Yearnings by bell hooks and of late, her Trilogy series on Black Love, Salvation and Soul. Love "Mandat" The Money Order by Ousmanne Sembene. Any Poetry by Pablo Neruda, the California Poet-Laurette, Al Young; Jessica Hagedorn's early poetry publication-Dangerous Music, remains close to my heart.
Heroes
My single parenting mother, Tsunesaburo Makaguchi, Josei Toda and Daisaku Ikeda (first, second and third president of the SGI and Human Rights, cultural and educational activists), Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Thomas Sankara, Ali Farka Toure, Ousmanne Sembene, The Ancestors who made that journey.
About me: bouki blues trailor
I worked in radio before discovering the art/craft of filmmaking. I discovered that there were similar tactile and time/space/ cadence sensibilities. As an on-air dj, I selected music and created segues from one song to another. I worked the midnight to 6am shift for a long time and received a call one early morning from a listener who was cutting a film in Marin County. He suggested that I should consider becoming an editor. He said it was the same process. I would often pre-record programs for later broadcast. I had to write a script for these programs. I created a syndicated radio program following Bob Marley's death...and looking back, it was about being a producer, director and editor. My career in radio ended and I eventually went back to school...initially to return to radio. I wanted to buy a station. While in school, I realized that radio was not an inevitability. I make docs now and enjoy making conceptual shorts that embody my poetry and yes, my radio voice.
Help fight homelessness by watching this movie online - Eyesoda.com's proceeds will go to homeless orgs in the US.
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Skid Row
Tis a brand new Week, and You are its fresh Seed;
In this Spring season, with its rising Sounds,
Let your flaws float and cultivate your Love to sprout.
Inspire the rest of your imperfect Mind to wonder
As you cuddle Life to embrace your good Intentions,
Delighting in the reality of the awesomeness that is You.
Let your Spirit reflect the energy of the Sun,
Reproducing the power, and neutralizing the negatives,
Just by the sheer rhythm of your beating Heart.
And when You smile this day, this moment,
May your light tranquilize the turbulent Waves
In your presence, even as the elements whisper in awe.
Tis Spring, new season, new reasons,
To Wake up, stand up, and spread out;
Reach out, Give out, and live LOVE as best You can!
my dear Portia, always wonderful to hear from you. hope all is well with you. [i am still waiting for the foreword to the anthology. hope you didn't forget about that.] will you invite me on FaceBook? i am there as well.everything is beginning to settle down now. let's talk soon. and please don't forget about the foreword. Nana
my dear Portia. miss you lots. what a joy to touch base in this zone once more. i may have been out of circulation recently; but you were on my heart all the while. to a fulfilling new year. PS. my new book of poems, 'salt in her womb', is out now at http://www. lulu. com/content/5329607. do check it out when you have the time. Nana
Hey, Professor Portia! How are you? I hope things are going well. Just wanted to give you a shout. I haven't been on here for a while...but miss connecting. Take care. :)
thanks, dear Portia, for the blessings of your friendship and the lessons you have taught and for the wishes and the kinship and for all the kisses and every thought. may your paths clear with the light that exudes from your heart's sight and may your life’s purpose be fulfilled according to that which your God willed. love always, Nana
What is sweeter than the pain of love? Not promise nor hope nor anticipation. None is as fulfilling as the transient flurry Of a glowing heart aflight, Lifted, not from the buoyant spirit Of reciprocation and such – High, Just from the thought of that other, That soul probably pining in the moment For the unholy stroke of some insignificant fool. What is sweeter than that pain called love? Not lust nor desire nor yen nor orgasms - Just the unspoken assurance that a heart rests Deep and at peace in the recesses of a dream pure Tucked securely at the center of devotion’s heart.
From the forthcoming book “Salt In Her Womb” by N.S. Achampong
my dear Portia, hope all is well with you and your fam.
Autumn Lush foliage sporting flirty plumes That invites bees with sweet nectar Now rusting, browning, turning gold Now shaking in the fall breeze, falling
And each used leaf hopelessly drops And as it falls onto desolate heaps of same It composts for new beginnings, Now rotting, then sprouting, springing
As you float in life this day Take time to breathe, I pray. Love freely, judge rarely Selflessly like God’s in thee.
Give continuously, take sparingly. Strive always to leave behind freely A little more than you met here- A smile, a hug, a kind word there.
And when you find yourself in darkness You are the light to shine through the stress Make sure some drops of your incandescence remain Spreading peace, joy, and a sound mind even in the rain.
Our present reality consists of thoughts biased by speech, objects obscured by light, truth manipulated by facts and life itself demeaned by existence true to the lies of the day.
Only hindsight, cognizant of the odd shade here, darkness there, trickling fallacies, the pungent silence and profound punctuation, death and disease, really presents reality.
To present the real therefore mind has essentially corrupted matter. God is dead, absolutism is buried with religion, what you see is not what is, void materializes, and death symbolizes life.
But we know that reality is the aggregate of the is and should be, the difference between existence and tangibility, the abstract and the fantasy, the caption and the picture, and, the freeze and event.
The absence of the aggregate and the demise of the difference propagate theories of conspiracy that misrepresent reality. Falsehood we embrace and present realities diametrically oppose truth.
From‘F.L.O.A.T.I.N.G.’by N. Achampong Free your mind…and the rest will follow!
