All Who Dare Los Angeles Premiere // Free Screening

My trip to the Lost Creek Wilderness with Eagle Rock School students last year is captured in this one-hour documentary:

All Who Dare follows nine incoming Eagle Rock students who leave behind their families, friends, and familiar environments as they surpass their limits in the Lost Creek Wilderness of Colorado. 

Guided by experienced wilderness educators, the students are challenged physically, emotionally, spiritually and socially during this once-in-a-lifetime journey of personal growth. They quickly learn that there are no excuses in the wilderness, and that completing the trip is only the first step in taking responsibility for their lives. 

All Who Dare – also the school’s motto – provides a compelling look at the unconventional approach of a nationally acclaimed innovative high school that provides hope for young people who are striving to turn their lives around.

The film is showing in Burbank on November 2nd. I wish that I could be there for the LA premiere, but I'm firing a soda kiln on November 1st, and have to stick around until the 6th to unpack and clean the kiln.

You can register for the free screening at AMC 16 Burbank here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-premiere-screening-all-who-dare-documentary-panel-qa-tickets-38643081497

At the Stanley Hotel with Jack (L) & Jordan (R)

I drove from Oakland to Estes Park last month in order to attend the premiere, and sat on the post-film panel. It was so wonderful to be among the students, faculty, and staff of the ERS community, and to be reunited with my awesome co-instructors on the trip, Jack and Jordan.

It's been over a year since I worked for ERS due to various scheduling conflicts, but I hope that changes in the coming seasons. Over the last three years, I've grown more and more comfortable working with young people, ever more in awe of what they understand, what they are capable of when they are supported, and how much we can learn from one another when given the time and space abundant in extended wilderness expeditions.

(Along the way to Colorado, I lost my necklace-- keep an eye out, world, it could be anywhere by now. It added a bittersweet tinge to the journey. With all that has happened in the last few weeks, to individuals in my life as well as to entire communities around the world, I'm keeping perspective on the loss as best I can. And, I'm still posting on Craigslist and messaging pawn shops around the US. Because why not.)

American Revolutionary at Laemmle Pasadena this month!

In 2010, I was fortunate to become connected to American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs as a transcriptionist. I got to listen closely to quite a bit of raw interview footage as well as interviews with some of the people whose lives she's touched in her long, long involvement in civil rights and community organizing in Detroit.

I missed the Los Angeles premiere last year because I was in the midst of my transition from LA to Cambodia to Oakland. I finally had the opportunity to see the film when it came to the Bay Area as a Gala Presentation for CAAMFest 2014.

Having done quite a few hours of transcription, and knowing that it was only a small portion of how much footage there was in total, I have a new depth of appreciation for the amount of work it takes to produce such a film. I enjoyed recognizing some of the bits that I'd transcribed, and was astounded at how much is left on the cutting room floor. 

Before my involvement with the documentary, I had little awareness of Grace Lee Boggs beyond knowing vaguely of her from the Blacklava "roots" shirt on which she appears alongside Philip Vera Cruz and Yuri Kochiyama (I got to share some Asian American history with the Executive Director of GirlVentures recently when I wore the shirt in honor of Yuri Kochiyama's recent passing). 

American Revolutionary provides a glimpse into her early life and her journey, the evolution of her ideas, but still left me with similar questions that her autobiography Living For Change left me with, this yearning to get a sense of who she is beyond the theory and practice of activism, her emotional life. I don't think she is intentionally evasive to those questions, though; she has been a student of philosophy all her life, centers her thoughts around activism and the theories behind them, and her discourse is framed around that. 

And ultimately, perhaps that is what makes her such a compelling subject-- the thoroughness of her commitment to social change, that she seems to live and breathe movement, that she seems constantly consumed with gathering and synthesizing ideas to create revolution. It is a way of being and way of living that I respect deeply; by the amount of critical and community acclaim the documentary has received, I am one of many. 

If you are in the Los Angeles area and didn't get to see American Revolutionary at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Fest, see it in its theatrical run June 20-26 at Laemmle Pasadena. 

Donate to 'American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs'

Truth:

The Los Angeles-based writer/director Grace Lee's next project is a documentary about this bad-ass, nonagenarian philosopher/activist:

American Revolutionary - Indiegogo 09/1/11 from American Revolutionary on Vimeo.

She's sent out these compelling messages to the Occupy Together movement activists (and to all of us).

Grace Lee Boggs' message to Occupy Wall Street - 10/9/11 from American Revolutionary on Vimeo.

Grace Lee Boggs' Message to Occupy Wall Street Part 2 from American Revolutionary on Vimeo.

Donate to the IndieGoGo campaign today--ends at midnight and it's less than $2,000 away from the goal thanks to a promised pledge of $1,500!