Film in production, 2020-2024

Writer & director

Editing Yannig Willmann, Paris

Zone 17 is an area of Baltimore situated at the intersection of Pennsylvania ave and North ave. It is a low income, black area, and a drug free zone.

During the first locked down in 2020, I started to feel the urge to document with my iPhone the disparity of my neighborhood during both the pandemic of COVID and the pandemic of drugs. During this process, I was stimulated by Parisian longtime collaborator and video artist Fédéric Nauczyciel, whom has lived in my area.

In the process of filming Zone 17, I started to imagine a movie that breaks down the collective reality of a drug consumed area, and that traces the appearance of specific characters, and in particular that of a young lesbian women named Briana, that kept appearing and kept challenging me during summer 2020.

Zone 17 is a film as well as a social practice: this project is a long-term on-going project over several years, due to the production process of a movie, thus with a social impact since my own practice as an artist is also a way to give a voice and a safe environment to the community of my neighborhood. As a writer, I get to help people to tell their own stories; in the midst of these interactions, I also bring attention to their needs, be it to be listened to, to be advised or to be supported in their daily life.

We are now in the process of writing and editing, in order to achieve a 40 minutes film to be sent to national and international film festivals - such as: Maryland film festival, Sundance in Salt Lake City, Tribeca in New York, la Berlinale film fest in Berlin, Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin… We plan to organize screenings in Baltimore for the neighborhood and the city in different venues in order to reach out a diverse audience: Pratt library on Penn North, LGBTQ centers in partnership with the University of Maryland and Startrack organization, Safe Haven Baltimore non profit for trans people, Charles Theatre, etc.

 Estimated duration of the movie: 40 minutes.

Film

“Ghost Ghetto” confronts the vision of black American ghettos with the republican vision of the French "Banlieues", through the character of Lisa Revlon, an activist for the rights of transgender people from the black neighborhoods of Baltimore in the United States. When she goes to France and explores the outskirts of Paris in order to understand the differences with Baltimore, Lisa analyzes her own journey, which led her from drug transport to becoming a writer and an advocate. In this cathartic process, the stereotypical images of the "ghettos" give way to those of a fantastical, imaginary or imagined, ghost ghetto.

In production (Baltimore & Paris).

Video art

Festival OVNI, Nice (France), 2022

A graphic art film drawn from two public appearances, telling my story : "The Crying Game" meets "The Wire".

Between 2014 and 2019, I was interviewed and led by French artist Frédéric Nauczyciel in a journey of becoming a writer and a film maker.

I Like the hood redraws this journey.

Shot in:

- Baltimore, 2014 (Pilote)

- Paris, Cité internationale des arts (artist residency), 2018 (Chapter 1)

- Noisiel (metro Paris), Centre d'art de la Ferme du Buisson (art center), 2018 (Chapter 2)

I Like the Hood because it is

A place where one does'nt care

where you are from

A place where real love is

A place where they care

A place where i feel accepted

A place with great raw talent

A place with people of

ALL WALKS OF LIFE.

Script for a Series

A small block, just a block

Behind one of Baltimore well known

Hot spot on the west side of Bmore

Penn & North

Open marcket area: when on the block, you almost forget you're just a block over because of the community.

A music studio, friends, neighbors, drama, police, sweet people in need, love and pain, dreams and hopes.

Scenes of true life that you get from those who live on this sweet block,

only to find out what goes on behing some of the doors

on Etting Street.

Short Novel, 2018

A step by step that leadsme to who I am, from the love to the life lessons that one faces.

Taken in all that was learned, Letting Go would be the greatest lesson taught,

probably by default,

by the greatests who were there before me.