‘On the Ice’ Director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean Visits Bogota

Director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean before a Q&A with students at Ciudad Bolivar. Photo by Jennifer Prediger.

Andrew Okpeaha MacLean

Just finished two days of screenings in Bogotá. Despite some technical difficulties with the projections, they were really successful. We met with a group of indigenous filmmakers yesterday. They only got to see half the film before we talked, but the discussion was still very valuable.

The indigenous people of Colombia are still locked in a life and death struggle for their land and basic human rights, and they’ve embraced film and video as an essential tool in that fight. Most of them are focused on documentary, but a few were talking about narrative/fiction-based projects.

We screened at a cinematheque in downtown Bogotá last night. In a perfect example of how small the filmmaking world is, Andres Martinez, the composer for Sikumi (the short that On the Ice is based on) was there. He’s Colombian and moved back to Bogotá from New York several years ago. He’s a great guy and an extremely talented musician and composer. I was very happy to reconnect with him.

And then today we drove out to Ciudad Bolivar, one of Bogotá’s poorer districts for a screening at a local community center. The audience there was full of teenagers. Andres was with us, and we screened Sikumi for them as well as On the Ice. The discussion afterwards was one of the best we’ve had. They seemed to connect strongly with the film, and asked very astute questions. It was a very positive atmosphere. Nobody really seemed to want to leave after the screening was over. We hung around and took photos and talked for a while with the kids and with the local organizers. But the embassy told us we had to leave before it got dark, because the area can be dangerous at night.

I hope the rest of the trip goes as well.

Read Part 2 of Andrew’s journey here.

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Alexis Chikaeze as Kai in 'Miss Juneteenth,' coming to digital platforms June 19

Channing Godfrey Peoples on a Bittersweet ‘Miss Juneteenth’ Release and the Urgency of Portraying Black Humanity on Screen

After premiering at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Channing Godfrey Peoples’s debut feature is hitting digital platforms this Juneteenth—the day for which the film is named and which is very close to the director’s heart. “I feel like I’ve been living Miss Juneteenth my whole life,” she says.
The June 19 holiday—which commemorates the day slavery was finally abolished in Texas (more than two years after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was issued)—is celebrated in her hometown of Fort Worth with a deep sense of reverence and community, with barbecues, a parade, and a scholarship pageant for young Black women.

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