Florida Film Festival - March 26

Next stop - the Florida Film Festival! The good news is that we all live in Florida, so this is an easy one for us to attend. The web page for DNWA is: http://www.floridafilmfestival.com/films/007164.html

The not-so-great news is that we're showing at 11:00AM on a Sunday. DUH! This is the SOUTH! Everyone will be at church! Who goes to movies on a Sunday morning anyway?

Honestly, though - we are extremely grateful that DNWA has been accepted by so many different film festivals. It is doing better than our wildest dreams!

Check the DNWA website - soon we'll have a downloadable trailer that is iPod compatible.

March 14 - Indie Black Film Fest Showing

We're on the road again! Just after recovering from the film fest in San Jose, we're off to Hot-Lanta to compete in the Independent Black Film Festival. The complete schedule can be found at: http://www.indieblackfilm.com/CINEFE_Schedule.pdf .

Come and introduce yourselves to us! We love to get feedback on DNWA and how it has affected you.

Regardz,
Jeremy Dean
Stephen Cobb
Chey Cobb

Racism - What's the Answer?

DNWA deals with racism, both in the past and at present. Obviously, we still have a LONG way to go to make people colorblind, but we can't stop working at it.

What are YOUR ideas for moving forward and eradicating racism in America? We'd really like to hear from you.

DNWA as Education

Just prior to the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, Director Jeremy Dean toured many of the historic black colleges in Florida to show the film to students and faculty. These viewings were facilitated by Florida Senator Tony Hill (www.flsenate.gov/legislators/Senate/S01).

ALL the viewings at the colleges were met with rave reviews and tremendous enthusiasm. What's even better, though, is the fact that DNWA gets people talking again ... whether we like it or not, racism is rampant in America and we have to expose it, show it for what it is, before we can get past it. It's like the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention. It's there. It's big. And it's leaving big turds everywhere. Somehow we, as individuals, have to find our own ways of eradicating racism. Education is definiately one of the methods we can use to start meaningful discussions.

Speaking of education, Sen. Hill is talking about introducing a bill in the Senate that would make DNWA part of the yearly school curriculum. That means that every student in Florida would be REQUIRED to view DNWA. How cool is that?

Let us know if you have other ideas on how to expand viewership of DNWA.

Support DNWA - Buy a T-Shirt!

You can help support the Dare Not Walk Alone Foundation (a legal, non-profit organization) by purchasing your very own DNWA t-shirt and messenger bag at CafePress (http://www.cafepress.com/DNWA). Five dollars of every purchase goes to the foundation. Thanks in advance for your support!!

SJ Buzz and Beyond

DNWA is building quite a buzz here at Cinequest in San Jose (a huge shout out to Shawn Martin for advance work!) The showings are coming up tomorrow (Saturday the 4th at 2PM at Camera 12, Sunday the 5th at noon, same place).

And the Florida Film Festival venue has just been announced:
Sunday, March 26, the Enzian Theater, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Check here for more.

Buzz on blogs and news sites is also growing. Google "Dare Not Walk Alone" to check it out. Also check out the DNWA store at Cafe Press. Cool t-shirts and other items are now available and each item purchased generates $5 toward future screenings of the film.

Cinequest Showings

The Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, CA starts today! The first viewing of DNWA is at The Camera 12, 201 S. Second St., San Jose: March 4th @ 2pm and March 5th @ noon. To buy tickets, go to http://www.cinequest.org/2006/programguide/event_view.php?eid=151

Hope to see you there!

St Augustine Mayor Walks Out of Housing Meeting

There was a housing summit today in Saint Augustine to discuss the deplorable conditions in some Saint Augustine neighborhoods. This meeting was organized after Senator Tony Hill viewed the film, Dare Not Walk Alone. He was appalled at the conditions of the houses shown in the documentary and wanted to address this situation by getting the city fathers together.

The meeting was held today, Feb 28. St Augustine Mayor, George Gardner stayed for a while and then stood up to leave. Before he left, however, he personally attacked Jeremy Dean for making Dare Not Walk Alone and said that Jeremy obviously only sees the "glass as half-empty." Mr. Gardner went on to say that Saint Augustine does not have a housing problem and then WALKED OUT of the meeting!. Everyone was totally stunned. (I would like to note here that Mr. Gardner's term expires in December, 2006. Thank goodness!)

After the Mayor walked out, the rest of the attendees boarded buses to view the worst areas of town and the areas needing the most help. Most people were visibly shaken and some even said they couldn't believe that they were still in America. The worst areas look more like Haiti than the well-groomed homes of the touristy areas of town.

I'm still waiting for word from the Mayor's office as to why he walked out and will advise you when I get a statement.

More than 1300 view film in St Augustine

St Augustine residents did its local filmmaker proud by showing up in record numbers for this first local showing of DNWA. The seats for the 7:00PM show were filled by 6:30. In fact, so many people were being turned away for the first show, that the DNWA crew had to quickly scramble to put on an additional screening for 8:30PM. All in all, more than 1300 people attended.

The only thing missing were the media, especially the local media. This was very surprising when you consider that all the most disturbing events shown in the film took place less than two blocks away from the Flagler College Auditorium (where the film was shown). If anything, this could be a "Local Boy Does Good" type of story. Of course we didn't expect CNN to be there but it was surprising to find out that the TV stations and newspapers aren't interested in topical subjects. (And, yes, we did send out notices and invitations!)

I guess this proves the adage of television news: If it Bleeds, it Leads. We can only guess that DNWA doesn't have enough blood and guts and gore for the local media's interest.

Other good news, tho...
We have been accepted by the Independent Black Flim Festival in Atlanta, March 12-19. Their web site is:
http://www.indieblackfilm.com/IBFHome.html

More news as we get it. Thanks for all your support and we look forward to meeting you at the festivals!

---DNWA ---

Requests for interviews

There have been a number of local media persons who have been requesting interviews with director, Jeremy Dean. We're all very busy getting ready for various showings and workshops but, if you would like more information or an appointment for an interview, please contact one of the following persons:

Jeremy Dean (writer/director) jeremy_dean88 at hotmail.com
Stephen Cobb (executive producer) sc at cobb.com
Chey Cobb (executive producer) cheycobb at gmail.com

By the way, the Flagler College paper did a nice piece on Jeremy and DNWA. (Jeremy is an alumnus of the college.)
http://gargoyle.flagler.edu/?p=283

Thanks for all your notes of praise and encouragement! information on how to donate to the Dare Not Walk Alone foundation will be coming soon.