Mydylarama Podcast

In this episode, journalist and film critic Leila Latif talks about her coup de coeur pick from a season of Arab women filmmakers season at the Garden Cinema in London - Nadine Labaki's Capernaum. We talk about the importance of the film, its sensitive and sober depiction of poverty, its positive reviews and those that called it overblown or manipulative, and what this says about Western stereotypes of the Arab world. We also talk about Sudanese film, Saleh Bakri's always charismatic turns in Wajib and The Blue Caftan and nod to Wissam Aljafari's short Ambience.

In the spirit of shedding light on all the great (and not-so great), imaginative and impressive films being made by the independent sector the world over, I spoke to Jack Brindelli from Indy Film Library, a platform that supports and reviews independent, under-celebrated or little-known films. The Indy Film Library is now a member of the Independent Media Association and they have an online and live mini-fest coming up end of April. The live element will be in Amsterdam. Jack wanted to flag three shorts that will be shown. Get your online tickets here!

Jack also talks about this year's highlights, including Jordan Peele's Nope and mentions analysing the film Pontypool, as part of a video essay. Pontypool, an unusual cultish zombie low budget flick is available to watch on YouTube.

"A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families". Animator Nadia Barbu joins us for scathing review of Blonde.

Nadia is an award winning animation filmmaker and illustrator. You can see her work here. 

*Trigger warning* We discuss the film's depiction of abortion and miscarriage.

This is the recording of the discussion and some music following the screening of Fragments of a Dream at Rich Mix on 19 January 2023. Dr Francisco Dominguez talks to us about the current situation in Chile and what we can do to counter the various far right movements around the world and imperialism, musician Phaxsi Coca treats us to some entrancing live music and the film's co-directors tell us about their work, the Dream Lives On festival in Wales that celebrates Latin American music and peace in the spirit of Chilean activist Victor Jara.

The screening was organised by Alborada - a magazine providing a progressive look at Latin American culture, arts and politics and their film arm, Alborada Films - and Movimientos, an organisation that hosts cultural and artistic Latin American events.

We were delighted to chat with Nana Mensah, director, writer and actress. Her first feature film Queen Of Glory, in which she also stars, met with much critical acclaim and was praised for its astute, unsentimental and at times downright hilarious portrayal of a Ghanian family in the US and high achieving academic daughter. We chat about her foray into filmmaking, how she made use of available resources, recent work by emerging filmmakers and artists of African origin(s) in and she shares her experience on the relationship friends and family of Ghanaian and other African origins have with the US. 

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"What unites these documentaries is that they both believe in a meritocracy"

 

Summer break is officially over... In this episode, we discuss the problem of student debt in the US, the very specific ways it affects Black Americans and the elitism of higher education, through:

- The Intercept documentary Freedom Dreams: Black Women and the Student Debt Crisis, narrated by former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a longtime ally of the growing debt abolition movement, which looks at the crippling student debt in the US specifically affects Black women. You can watch it HERE.

 

- The Netflix documentary called Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal about the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. The doc is a mix of re-eactements and real life interviews, and stars Matthew Modine as Rick Singer. It depicts the scandal surrounding the uncovering of a scam run by a private college councillor and “adviser” Rick Singer, who used bribes and doctored photographs to get rich people’s kids into elite universities.

 

The issues we take with both docs is that they don't quite address some of the more fundamental, systemic inequalities, which mean that tackling the debt crisis in this way, or condemning Rick Singer's "side doors" into higher education just isn't enough. 

 

Here is some additional reading on the subject that will hopefully help you gain more context: 

 

Black Student Debt

7 findings that illustrate racial disparities in education

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2016/06/06/7-findings-that-illustrate-racial-disparities-in-education/

 

Degree Attainment for Black Adults: National and State Trends 

https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Black-Degree-Attainment_FINAL.pdf

 

How Black Women Experience Student Debt

https://edtrust.org/resource/how-black-women-experience-student-debt/

 

Raising Undergraduate Degree Attainment Among Black Women and Men Takes on New Urgency Amid the Pandemic

https://edtrust.org/resource/national-and-state-degree-attainment-for-black-women-and-men/

 

Student loans, the racial wealth divide, and why we need full student debt cancellation

https://www.brookings.edu/research/student-loans-the-racial-wealth-divide-and-why-we-need-full-student-debt-cancellation/

 

The Student Debt Crisis? It’s Infinitely Worse for Black Women

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/student-debt-black-women/

 

Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/

 

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More Q&As! As Coco Green gets stuck in the final chapters of her PhD, we take a break from our usual format to publish Q&As and whatever audio output we fancy. 

To mark our partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival and celebrate short films, we had a chat with Philip Ilson, founder and director of the London Short Film Festival, and film programmer (for the BFI, amongst others) . We talk about film clubs in the 1990s, the festival's early days, programming freedom and short films to look out for. 

Follow Philip on Twitter @philipilson and updates from the London Short Film Festival here. 

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As we take a short break from our usual, very long-form format, we decided to post audio interviews and content via our podcast channel. 

Abla and Mydy contributor and chillout music expert Eddy Durnan sent a series of questions to ambient music maestro Phondupe, whose transportative sounds have provided much-needed escapism to many in the last couple of years. The musician, whose wider known titles include Ama and Silo, tells us more about his work, inspiration, travels and ambitions. We're also publishing this in written form on our website. 

We also now FINALLY have a jingle! Impressions welcome. Comments @mydylarama via Twitter or any of the podcast platforms!

We're back!! We took a couple of months' break for me to get over the chaos of the first few weeks of having a newborn (my second - still chaotic!).

We're delighted to have Akua Gyamfi join us this week to discuss her work and her top picks. Akua is the founder of The British Blacklist . She's also the creator of the TBB Talks & Your Aunties Could Never Podcasts, as well as co-creator of The Circle Podcast & Web series.

Akua's top picks include the Prince Of Bel-Air reboot and the film she chose to discuss is Spike Lee's Crooklyn. We discuss the tone of the film, the depiction of familial relationships and female characters, the fate of daughter Troy, Black cultural output in the US and the UK, the prevalence of Black American popular culture. We also share anecdotes about MC Hammer and get schooled about what the Bay Area is!

Here's a useful link to Tonetalks, which is relevant to our discussion.

https://youtu.be/2m63A9dmRM8

 

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*MIC ISSUES* Apologies for the less than stellar quality of sound in this week's podcast. We had a minor missing mic issue which has been resolved. Also to look forward to, in the new year, we'll finally have a jingle!

This time, we focus on Amazon Prime doc LuLaRich, which follows the trials and tribulations of MLM empire LuLaRoe, a supposed garish legging selling business that operates as a pyramid scheme in all but name. We discuss the doc itself of course and the problematic nature of multi-level marketing schemes, who they appeal to and why.

We also flag the upcoming Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the largest short film festival in the world. Mydylarama has been a partner of the event for 5 years now so you'll be able to find interviews and highlights from February onwards on our website. 

 

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