Audrey reviews what SIFF films the folks at The SunBreak saw opening weekend, and the ones that they’re looking forward to over the next few days.
So happpy to see A Lot Like You highlighted as a Must See film in the coming week:
A Lot Like You When local filmmaker Eli Kimaro traveled to Tanzania to meet her dad’s side of the family, she never thought she’d unearth family secrets. (May 24, 7 p.m. @ the Harvard Exit; June 12, 1 p.m. @ the Admiral.
Mom just flew 24 hours to be here for opening night, and for our World Premiere. (Let’s not even begin to talk about what we’d need to do to offset the carbon footprint of our premiere!)
How lucky are we to have A Lot Like You featured in the SIFF guide issue of Seattle Weekly!?!
I couldn’t believe how much ground Brian Miller covered in our interview last week. And I’ve been curious ever since to see how this story would coalesce. To read Millers’ full article, click here…
Well, we couldn’t be more thrilled, and grateful, for the exquisite timing of this article:
1) because it’s in Seattle Weekly‘s SIFF guide issue.
2) because it also happens to be the week of A Lot Like You‘s World Premiere (Tuesday, May 24 at 7 pm, Harvard Exit), and
3) because mom’s flying in from Tanzania tomorrow to be here for our premiere, and will be arriving just in time to see this fabulous article on the newsstands.
SWEEET!
(And huge thanks to Joshua Huston for this lovely photo.)
Many thanks to Imaginary Amie for highlighting A Lot Like You in her SIFF NW Connections preview!
NW Documentaries include…How to Die in Oregon about a woman’s choice to end her life under OR’s Death with Dignity clause (bring some tissue, folks), and A Lot Like You, which follows Seattle filmmaker Eli Kimaro back home to Tanzania as she uncovers some long hidden family secrets (yeesh. Mebbe go to Costco and stock up on a palette of Kleenex)…
Seriously, folks. One in Three Imaginary Girls recommends our film. How could you possibly expect to beat those odds??!
“I am a first-generation American,” Eliaichi Kimaro explains in voice-over near the beginning of her rich, complex autobiographical documentary. “Mom and Dad are from opposite ends of the globe. An interracial, bicultural couple.” Her mother is from Korea, her dad is from Tanzania, and they met in school in the United States (their love story and subsequent careers at the IMF and the World Bank constitute a fascinating chunk of the film).
Growing up, Kimaro spent every summer in Tanzania with her Chagga relatives, but, she says, “that connection was hazy.” She was welcome, but she was foreign, and that wasn’t easy: “Every summer in Tanzania was a reminder that this kinship I bragged about to my American friends existed only in my imagination.” That disconnect is where A Lot Like You begins, and then it goes much, much deeper.”
In January 2011, Lindy wrote an insightful feature-length review of our film titled “There and Back Again…” To read the full article, click here…
Today I was invited to speak to Ms. Mackoff’s class at Roosevelt High School. Driving up there, I remembered how I felt after seeing Nora Ephron speak at my school…23 years ago!
At the time, she was working on When Harry Met Sally, and shared stories about how challenging it was to penetrate the billy crystal/rob reiner/bruno kirby show (a/k/a “the boys’ club.”) Ephron spoke about her career, her life choices, her passion for writing and film with so much honesty and humor, I was transfixed, transported, transformed.
I don’t have a whole film career to reflect on. But I now have something to show for my last 8 years, and a rather unlikely story of how I got here.
with Dustin Kaspar (SIFF Educational Programs Director) at Roosevelt HS
So today was my first opportunity to reflect on this experience with a younger audience. While talking to Ms. Mackoff’s class, I recalled my darkest hour. Six years in, Eric and I realized that the only way to do justice to our story was for me to assume the role of storyteller.
This prospect terrified me. Not so much because of what I might be called upon to share. But because I was consumed with self-doubt. If we centerred the story around my experience, would people be able to relate?
As a queer identified, mixed-race, First generation American woman of color living in the Pacific NW at this particular moment in time…would my story matter?
I had to overcome this paralyzing fear. For months, the only thing I listened to was This American Life. Ira Glass reminded me that nothing compels us more than connecting to others through the power of story.
So I had to find my own way to Show up. Pay attention. Speak my truth. Then let go of the consequences. If that was all I did, it would be enough. And if my story impacted even one person as much as my Aunts’ (and Nora and Ira) had affected me, this whole journey would have been worthwhile.
In the A Lot Like You Soundtrack Bio, Pete reveals how working on this project profoundly transformed his life. This ripple effect of seeking one’s truth is what led to our new tagline, the truth has no borders.
A Lot Like You’s Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be in indie record stores on May 24 (same day as the film’s World Premiere!) Of course, you can always pre-order now at the Puzzle Tree Online Store and get your copy early!!
Continuing coverage of Diasporic films screening at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival, which begins on the 19th of this month…
The documentary is titled A Lot Like You, and its short story goes… Eliaichi Kimaro (also the film’s director) is a mixed-race, first-generation American filmmaker, with a Korean mother and a Tanzanian father, in search of her roots, tracing her father’s footsteps back to Mt. Kilimanjaro, where she discovers the beauty and brutality of the life he left behind, and translates that into her own personal legacy.
The 80-minute film screened as a work-in-progress at the San Diego Black Film Festival earlier this year. Its Seattle date will be its official world premiere!
How lucky are we to have A Lot Like You featured in the SIFF guide issue of 
with Dustin Kaspar (SIFF Educational Programs Director) at Roosevelt HS
