I'm really excited to have been accepted into Le Marché du Film, an international marketplace affiliated with the Cannes Film Festival where I'll meet with movie distributors around the world. I'll be promoting the documentary I produced and directed, "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring."
Journeying to the French Riviera next month will be a two-for-one-adventure: not only will I be able to spread the word about "Lady Wrestler," I'll also get to walk in the footsteps of the characters I created for my debut novel, "The Chloe Chronicles." In a key sequence in the novel when the main character, Chloe Bareaux, is a teenager, she and her best friend, Gigi Cartier, defy their overprotective mothers, run away from their hometown of Paris and take up residence in a glamorous hotel in Monaco.
It will be really cool to actually see with my own two eyes where Chloe and Gigi frolic on the beach with a handsome American pop star named Montana and a mixed-race young Frenchman named Dominique.
I'll, of course, post updates from Le Marché du Film and the Cannes Film Festival when they kick off in mid-May.
As Chloe and Gigi declare when they run away from home, "Monaco, here we come!"
(To view a quick video about my anxiety about traveling internationally given the recent terror attack in Paris and all the instability in the world, click here.)
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Attending WrestleCon Was An Eye-Opening Experience
I recently realized that in the several years that I've been working on directing and editing the documentary "Lady Wrestler," I never actually took in a wrestling match. I came to this revelation while attending WrestleCon, a wrestling convention held in Orlando the first week of April.
"Lady Wrestler" tells the story of African-American female pioneers like Ethel Johnson, Babs Wingo, Marva Scott and Ramona Isbell, who braved racism and sexism in the 1950s and '60s to excel in the male-dominated field of professional wrestling.
I found out about WrestleCon while browsing the Web one day and saw that one of the highlights of the convention would be a "Women's SuperShow." I thought it would be interesting to finally see firsthand the subject that I'd done so much research about in the past decade.
I landed in Orlando without any preconceived notions about what the WrestleCon experience might turn out to be. Before I started working on "Lady Wrestler" way back in '06, I knew next to nothing about professional wrestling other than watching it on WTBS as a kid in the '80s when Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper were superstars.
When I arrived at the hotel and convention center that hosted WrestleCon, I was pleased to find a lot of diversity. Not only were there male and female fans of all races milling around the convention floor, there were also white, black and Latino wrestlers signing autographs and posing for selfies with fans.
Attending my very first in-person wrestling match was a blast. The crowd for the "Women's SuperShow" was also diverse. And something that really struck me was how the men in the audience hooted and hollered and went crazy for the women wrestlers.
When the female wrestlers would make their entrance, the male fans would rush to the sidelines to shake hands and high-five these women they obviously idolized. There were a couple of matches when women wrestled male wrestlers, and the men actually rooted for the women to dominate.
Interestingly, the women in the audience remained quiet the whole time. It was almost as if the men dragged their wives and girlfriends to this female-centered event, instead of the other way around.
Seeing the men going wild for these female superstars was such a refreshing contrast to the sci-fi/fantasy genre, where so-called fanboys brutally harass women who dare to enter their realm. Remember that horrible incident last summer when Leslie Jones was savaged by Twitter trolls just because she starred in an all-female remake of "Ghostbusters"?
Taking part in WrestleCon was a truly awesome experience. To see a quick video highlight on my YouTube page, click here.
"Lady Wrestler" tells the story of African-American female pioneers like Ethel Johnson, Babs Wingo, Marva Scott and Ramona Isbell, who braved racism and sexism in the 1950s and '60s to excel in the male-dominated field of professional wrestling.
I found out about WrestleCon while browsing the Web one day and saw that one of the highlights of the convention would be a "Women's SuperShow." I thought it would be interesting to finally see firsthand the subject that I'd done so much research about in the past decade.
I landed in Orlando without any preconceived notions about what the WrestleCon experience might turn out to be. Before I started working on "Lady Wrestler" way back in '06, I knew next to nothing about professional wrestling other than watching it on WTBS as a kid in the '80s when Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper were superstars.
When I arrived at the hotel and convention center that hosted WrestleCon, I was pleased to find a lot of diversity. Not only were there male and female fans of all races milling around the convention floor, there were also white, black and Latino wrestlers signing autographs and posing for selfies with fans.
Attending my very first in-person wrestling match was a blast. The crowd for the "Women's SuperShow" was also diverse. And something that really struck me was how the men in the audience hooted and hollered and went crazy for the women wrestlers.
When the female wrestlers would make their entrance, the male fans would rush to the sidelines to shake hands and high-five these women they obviously idolized. There were a couple of matches when women wrestled male wrestlers, and the men actually rooted for the women to dominate.
Interestingly, the women in the audience remained quiet the whole time. It was almost as if the men dragged their wives and girlfriends to this female-centered event, instead of the other way around.
Seeing the men going wild for these female superstars was such a refreshing contrast to the sci-fi/fantasy genre, where so-called fanboys brutally harass women who dare to enter their realm. Remember that horrible incident last summer when Leslie Jones was savaged by Twitter trolls just because she starred in an all-female remake of "Ghostbusters"?
Taking part in WrestleCon was a truly awesome experience. To see a quick video highlight on my YouTube page, click here.
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