W I N N E R : 2 017 N N PA M E R I T AW A R D S : 2 N D P L A C E B E S T S P E C I A L E D I T I O N
Insight News July 9 - July 15, 2018
Vol. 45 No. 28• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Creators & Warriors
From left to right: Leonard Searcy, David Buchanan, Al McFarlane, Brian Few Jr., James Griffin and DaVar McGee Sr.
Abeni Hill
Filmmakers seek to reinvent the world Editor’s Note: Behind the Staff Writer headline Leonard Searcy By Abeni Hill and a colleague showed up at Juneteenth wearing Black Panther full body outfits and commanding awe and affection of young and old alike. In that role and in their work as filmmakers, Searcy and colleagues reveal themselves to be creators and warriors, embodiments of the idea of Waconda Forever!
portant conversations to be had in our community. Award-winning director and screenwriter Davar McGee created a short film about police brutality titled “Suspect.” The film won awards including Film of Merit from the Best Shorts Film Festival. McGee worked with Brian Few, Jr. and Dennis Harmon on “Suspect.” Few’s role for the film was cinematographer and editor while McGee wrote the screenplay and directed the short, and Harmon created the musical score. Film is more than a form of enSaid Few, “McGee is heavy tertainment, it is a means of ex- on the dialogue so I challenged pression and a gateway to im- him to do it in silent form.” “We
came up with a six-minute short that doesn’t have any dialogue whatsoever, but it is causing people to talk, which is exactly why we do this.” McGee recently started a crowdfunding campaign (www. gofundme.com/trinityhighfilm) for his first feature film “Trinity High,” which is currently in pre-production and McGee described it as “an anti-bullying campaign film.” The trailer for “Trinity High” premiered on July 6 with NAACP Minneapolis Chapter. McGee and Few are also part of a non-profit for Black filmmakers in the Twin Cities started FILMMAKERS 2