[RE]DISCOVERING
FANON
TRAILER
ABOUT
"We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe."
- Frantz Fanon. 1963
"I can't breathe."
- Eric Garner. 2014
A
Rico
Speight
Film
Frantz Omar Fanon. 1925-1951. Who was this man? Why do his ideas—introduced in the 1950s—continue to instigate controversy and stir the hearts of progressives decades after his death?
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Filmmaker Rico Speight aims to reveal the man behind the legend and analyze the relevance of his prolific theories in a globalized, "post-racial" millennium with his latest documentary project, Rediscovering Fanon.
[RE]DISCOVERING
FANON
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
Digital Storytelling
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The
Creative Lab
My interest in Frantz Fanon’s writings grew out of conversations in my family, as a youth coming of age in the South with incessant questions on the subjects of race and privilege. Early on, an uncle taught me the Law of Compensation, and from that I intuited that the enjoyments of privilege and entitlements—racial and otherwise—must not be without consequence.
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RE-DISCOVERING FANON explores racially-polarized America through the story of Frantz Fanon’s indelible race theories.
Through the lens of his ideas, RE-DISCOVERING FANON examines the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Botham Jean, Walter Scott, Philando Castile and other American tragedies, as it underscores Fanon’s notion of ‘the peril of black bodies amid anti-black racism.’
With RE-DISCOVERING FANON, our intent is to go the distance toward unraveling the thorny issue of race: Why should every black person and person of color from Fanon to Trayvon Martin experience racism. Fanon teaches that this is not merely a “black problem” but a “societal problem.”
Always actional, Fanon writes, “I am not a prisoner of history. ...What matters is not to know the world but to change it.”
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- RS
Rico Speight has a diversified career in directing, editing, writing, and producing for film, theater, and digital media. His award-winning documentaries include Who's Gonna Take the Weight?, on African American and Black South African youth during the fall of Apartheid, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999.
He recently wrote, directed and produced ROBESON AND DUNHAM: ART & ACTIVISM 101, an Off-Broadway production at Gene Frankel Theatre. Currently, Speight is producing a documentary on Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary psychiatrist, philosopher, activist who inspired the Battle of Algiers.
MEDIA
Speight, R. (2018) Interviewed by Malika Lee Whitney for UNTITLED, 29, August. (Accessed: 1 February, 2020)
SUPPORT
Already a decade in the making, Re-Discovering Fanon is being shot in Martinique, France, Algeria and the USA. It is a fully independent production—an effort of love—and every dollar raised is being used to complete this project. Again, Re-Discovering Fanon has had a long period of gestation, and now the time is finally right to introduce it to the world--a powerful, documentary that speaks truth to power as Fanon did.
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We have an incredible team of professionals and activists on our side. We have already completed 90% of the shooting and we have now begun editing. We need funds to purchase archival footage and for postproduction expenses. We are extremely happy to be partnered with Third World Newsreel, an organization wholly aligned with and supportive of our vision.
Please be sure to select REDISCOVERING FANON from the drop-down menu in the link below. THANK YOU!!!
Contact Us
- Questions, screenings, media inquiries -
[RE]DISCOVERING
FANON
Connect
Email: info@rediscoveringfanon.com
Third World Newsreel
Third World Newsreel (TWN) is an alternative media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation and dissemination of independent film and video by and about people of color and social justice issues.