Nelly's Bodega is a film written and directed by Omonike Akinyemi, a graduate from USC Film School. It was produced in collaboration with The Coalition of Mental Health Professionals, Inc. Domestic Violence Project. The Concept: The concept behind this film is at the heart of American society. We live in this world in which we rarely look into our neighborhood problems. We rarely forge out of our own immediate universe to find out how the man or woman who lives next door is doing. When we realize our neighborhood is in danger, our lives become defined by our actions. This film is important because it allows the viewer to become a part of a racially mixed neighborhood in United States in which people learn to care for one another. It is through Fatima, a young African American girl growing up in the neighborhood, that Nelly, a Latina woman realizes she must look to the literal and spiritual child within her for happiness and leave a marriage riddled with battery. The Director: Omonike Akinyemi is an African-American filmmaker who hales from New York, NY...She began her film studies at Yale University with noted filmmaker, Michael Roemer. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. For her first film, "Medusa Talks", Omonike was awarded an MTV Music/Word Studio Foundation Scholarship. "Medusa Talks" was also presented at the 1997 Fespaco (the Festival International du Cinema in Burkina), the Black Harvest Film Festival of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has also directed a documentary film on the music of Cuba, "Breathing Cuba", which received a Dan Eldon award for Documentary Photography. Her most recent film, "Nelly's Bodega", was presented at the 1999 Vues d'Afriques of Montreal, the 1999 Los Angeles Pan-African Film Festival, and the 2000 Festival de Femmes et Cinema in Gudaloupe, the French West Indies. The film will made its New York premiere at the New York International Latino Film Festival in 2000. As a 1997 PROJECT INVOLVE IFP/West participant Omonike interned with mentors Takashi Bufford and Julie Dash. Omonike's interests include further work as a writer and director of fictional and documentary film. Omonike is now developing a narrative fiction feature film on the Black women in Paris to be filmed in 2001. |