For Ahkeem
SECTION: International Forum 2017, Open Eyes 2017
SCREENINGS
Friday, 29.09.,6.00 p.m., kinoeins, Q&A with Landon van Soest
Tuesday, 03.10., 9.00 p.m., kommkino
SYNOPSIS
Beginning one year before the fatal police shooting of a black teenager in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, FOR AHKEEM is the coming-of-age story of Daje Shelton, a Black 17-yearold girl in North St. Louis. She fights for her future as she is placed in an alternative high school and navigates the marginalized neighborhoods, biased criminal justice policies and economic devastation that have set up many Black youth like her to fail.
After she is expelled from her public high school, a juvenile court judge sends Daje to a court-supervised school that offers her one last chance to earn a diploma. Over two years we watch as Daje struggles to maintain focus in school, attends the funerals of friends killed around her, falls in love with a classmate named Antonio, and navigates a loving-but-tumultuous relationship with her mother. As Antonio is drawn into the criminal justice system and events in Ferguson just four miles from her home seize the national spotlight, Daje learns she is pregnant and must contend with the reality of raising a young Black boy. Through immersive, cinematic scenes of one girl’s struggle to make a better life for herself and her newborn son, FOR AHKEEM explores the complex web between juvenile justice, education, and race in America today.
LANDON VAN SOEST
Landon Van Soest was born in Denver (Colorado, USA) in 1981. From 2000 to 2004, he studied film and photography at Ithaca College (New York). Together with Jeremy Levine, he founded the film production company Transient Pictures in Brooklyn in 2006. The following year, they founded the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. His film Good Fortune screened at NIHRFF in 2011.
FILMOGRAPHY
Good Fortune (2016), For Ahkeem (2017)
JEREMY S. LEVINE
Jeremy S. Levine was born in Beverly (Massachusetts, USA) in 1984. He studied at Ithaca College (New York) until 2006. Together with Landon Van Soest, he founded the film production company Transient Pictures in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006. The following year, the two founded the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective.
FILMOGRAPHY
Am I Next (2014), For Ahkeem (2017)
WEBSITE
http://forahkeemfilm.com/