It's not fair that we get caught and wound up shot by the cops, I'm sick of it. They are controlled by five student body factions: The Spades, The Seas, The Skins, The Bobbies, and The Perfects factions. I really wanted to make a story that was not told through the white gaze, or for the white gaze. I think for Selah her focus is the potential negative consequences of her actions and that's why she seems as though she disconnects from her reality, and she is super focused on what is over that ledge. Paloma is pretty chill when Selah is still in charge and has all of the power.
If someone had a game the next day, then we would decorate their room, get them a cake, or just something sweet. After doing that enough times. I got sick of feeling like being a young black woman required me to reconsider how I presented myself. Directed by Tayarisha Poe. At the head of the most powerful faction – THE SPADES – sits Selah Summers.
Like the novel "Lord of the Flies" the youth at Haldwell govern themselves. The whole point of this secret society was to do good things for people on campus. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. However, "Selah and The Spades," Tayarisha Poe's feature film directorial debut, gives space for black teens to go through growing pains, shift through emotions, and make bad decisions without consequence. What were you trying to communicate through this?
It's not fair that people who look like me don't get to get away with things. As the most popular girl in school, she knows she has power, but throughout the film, she learns what she's willing to compromise for that power. During finals, we would go around delivering candy. I went to The Peddie School, a boarding school in New Jersey. What do these things feel like through her eyes because for us it feels like a fascinating and cool world?
Usually, a story like "Selah and The Spades" centers on a character like Paloma. Copyright © 2019 Salon.com, LLC. Viewers get to know Selah as a popular mean girl who leads both her cheer squad and The Spades with manipulation and perfectionism. I think for Selah there's this realization of what could have happened if they had not stopped Paloma or had not been there to help Paloma up. This imaginative world doubles as a journey into Poe's truth of coming of age without the burdens of historical traumas weighing into her everyday decisions as a black student in boarding school. The part I like about Paloma's character is I don't think she views Selah as less important because Paloma has grown into her power more. I thought maybe I should just write a movie where she is not the villain. I love "The Godfather'' and "Breaking Bad," these stories about older white men doing really bad things and like reasoning it away as though it's for the greater good when they are just doing it for their ego. I was both Selah and Paloma in high school. I think it took me, a black woman and another black woman standing on a stage and shouting, "You already like these films; you just want them to be white men. ------------------------------------------, I got sick of feeling like being a young black woman required me to reconsider how I presented myself, I was tired of seeing black people get caught. You would be entering this new world and learning about the various factions through her eyes.
I think it's damaging because it's such a limited perspective of black people. From the perspective of Paloma, it's interesting the closer we get to something we deem to be beautiful changes the closer we get to it.
Poe shares with Salon her experience attending boarding school, creating a film where the black kids get to misbehave, and the process of getting a film made without a historical trauma-based story arc. Like the novel "Lord of the Flies" the youth at Haldwell govern themselves.
I grew up in Southwest Philadelphia, around Baltimore Avenue, where I spent most of my childhood and my 20s.
Selah and the Spades. The person who is the teacher instead of the student, because I felt as though especially at that age and especially being a black girl, and having darker skin, that character is typically painted as the villain. What character in the film best reflects who you were in high school? What sort of high school did you attend? They couldn't understand why she didn't get in trouble. Both charming and callous, Selah walks the fine line between being feared and loved, often cutting loose whomever she deems a threat to her power. What informed this decision? Along with Selah, the film focuses on her right-hand man Maxxie (Emmy winner Jharrel Jerome), and their newest recruit, Paloma (Celeste O'Connor). At the head of the most powerful faction - The Spades - sits Selah Summers, walking the fine line between being feared and loved. From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to tell a story from the other person's perspective and that power relationship. So I view Selah as being really emotional, and having a lot of emotions and not knowing where to put them, knowing that you need to have power and not knowing exactly why, or what you are doing to keep a hold of that power is worth the power itself. Poe creates this space Haldwell, a fictitious Pennsylvania boarding school, as the backdrop for viewers to get a glimpse into the high school senior Selah's carefree life. Selah is focused on the consequences of her actions for the first time in a really long time in her life.
We are all seeking these questions of morality, but we are only willing to afford that complexity and that ambiguity to white men.". What started me writing that story was just this desire to see somebody who looked like me and felt like me, but who got to live a life however they wanted, no matter the consequences and they just kept doing that. All rights reserved. I was interested in seeing how Paloma's interactions with Selah changes as Paloma's power grows. This power struggle is explored as Selah mentors Paloma, a transfer student who is an observant free-spirited photographer.
However, you chose to center on Selah instead. That's why I wrote, "Selah and The Spades" because the last time I remember feeling that sort of unlimited potential and freedom was when I was a teenager, that's a period of time when we really begin to solidify the boundary that is ourself and the personality of who we are. The film first premiered as a NEXT selection at Sundance last year and makes its way to Amazon Prime, joining the slew of other movies available to stream in April. There are a lot of great films coming out right now that are presenting blackness through a view that isn't presented through whiteness, so it's allowing black people and black characters to just be themselves, and exist within their own worlds, and not at every turn confront another aspect of white supremacy. "Selah and The Spades" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Were there secret societies in your high school like in the film, and if so were you a part of one? Paloma's attitude changes as she grows in her power, and then on the flip side, the thing that is more interesting to me is seeing Selah, someone who is used to this powerful beautiful world and this very privileged microcosm of society that she exists in, what does that same beauty look like through her eyes? Tell me why you chose to end the film with them having a prom in the woods, where Selah drugs Paloma, and Maxxie and Selah go running after Paloma? What prompted you to construct this narrative around black kids getting away with alcohol and drug dealing? She is beginning to realize, "When I do these things I cannot always control the outcome and that is why I should not do these things." With Lovie Simone, Jharrel Jerome, Celeste O'Connor, Ana Mulvoy Ten. It's all about the reality of how it feels for Selah as opposed to the reality of how it is. Priscilla Ward is an over-caffeinated, D.C.-based writer, running enthusiast, music explorer, and founder of BLCKNLIT. What prompted you to write about these younger years of your life? They are controlled by five student body factions: The Spades, The Seas, The Skins, The Bobbies… Selah is graduating soon and hopes to train Paloma to follow in her footsteps.
The school has four other factions but unlike the others Selah has no one to replace her when she graduates. Was it hard to get this sort of film greenlit, because it doesn't exist within any sort of historical loglines of what black people have historically shown up as in films? We had this secret society at my high school, it was called the Secret Society of Eight, and you were invited in by someone who was about to graduate. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. Of Haldwell student body’s five factions — The Spades, The Sea, The Skins, The Bobbies, and The Prefects factions — Selah runs the most dominant, The Spades, who cater to … Selah (Lovie Simone) runs the most prominent of these, The Spades, who are a group of drug dealers. Few onscreen playgrounds allow black youth to be wild and free without punishment. [Editor's Note: The following portion of the interview contains spoilers from the ending of "Selah and the Spades."].
(360) IMDb 4.7 1h 37min 2020 X-Ray HDR UHD R. Five factions run the underground life of the prestigious Haldwell boarding school. Selah is a senior at a Pennsylvania boarding school, where she leads a faction of students called the Spades who sell drugs to other students. As an audience member, I really love these gangster movies and shows. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. You can find her tweeting @Macaronifro. Five factions run the underground life of Haldwell School, a prestigious east coast boarding school. I love those stories and I really relate to them because I'm interested in what we are willing to tell ourselves to excuse our own behavior. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC.
I have been both a Selah and a Paloma; that's why I wrote this story because I felt as though the Paloma parts of myself were a lot easier to digest and a lot more acceptable, being the shy, observant, outsider, having a good time, but not too much.
As the film develops you see the interaction between Selah and Paloma shift, as Paloma obtains more power. It was very difficult to get to the right place until we did this thing called Sundance Catalyst, where we were able to meet our lead producer Lauren McBride, and pitched the film to an auditorium of investors, and that kind of changed our trajectory in a major way because it seemed to a lot of people like an impossible idea. Quite seriously, I was tired of seeing black people get caught. I felt as though the Selah parts of myself were the ones I had to keep intact especially in mixed companies.
I have grown up spending most of my life seeing movies where that character is the villain and having to write my version in my head where she is not the villain. Throughout the film, viewers get an intimate view of the experiences of black kids in a boarding school environment, while also focusing on Selah. As the film progresses, Selah finds herself in constant conflict with her identity, struggling to reconcile the straight-A student she presents to her mother, with the cool street boss she presents to her peers. I'm trying to make films for myself at the age of 15, and I'm just trying to think about what would have been the ball for me because being a teenager is hard.
.
Op Gg Replays, Kecskemét Látnivalók, Luke Bryan Twitter, Reír In English, Vue Norwich, Lego 10264 Creator Expert Corner Garage, Ines Kahnwald Actress, 49ers Vs Nfc East, Cgv Aeon, Gla University Polytechnic, Alaskan Malamute Pronunciation, Rr Song, Scarborough Downs 2020 Schedule, How To Act Confident, Dwight Roblox Profile, Kalambaka, Greece, Rogers Cinema, Kenny Chesney - Someone To Fix Lyrics, London To Chatham, Sanditon News, Curzon Cinema, Overnight Parking Los Angeles, Run Run I'm Gonna Get It Lyrics English, Auburn Golf Alumni, Vanderbilt Tennis Division, Parasite West End, Cinema And Co Swansea, Single And Double Lane Road, Storytelling Techniques Ppt, Chemnitzer Concertina, Benjamin Barker Cafe 1-for-1 Pasta, Rebecca Mimi_cash_ Instagram, Jackass 3 Full Movie, Supermarket Slogans Uk, Christchurch England School, Robert Casey Actor, Famous Hispanic Players, Rainbow From Space, Mia Morrissey Date Of Birth, To In French, Women's College Tennis Player Rankings, Felina Review, Hvað Heitir Mugison, Colgate University Men's Soccer Division, Dukes Toronto Slang, Master And Commander, Campbell Cinema Springfield, Mo, Who Wrote Life Changes, Good News Showtimes Amc, Rhiannon Genius, Thiem Backhand, Movie Times Corpus Christi Texas, Wrigley Field Lego Set, Clarksons Platou Securities, Firefall Strange Way, Who Did Jerry Seinfeld Date, Full List Synonym, Cgv Now Showing, Jen Up, Yves Saint Laurent Biografia, Reading Cinemas Spotlight, Lego Razor Crest Review, Should You Put Your Home Address On Your Business Card, Mayajaal Ticket Price, Aberdeen Transfermarkt, Attack Of The Show Twitch, Night By Elie Wiesel Sparknotes, Attractive Crossword Clue, Road To Nowhere Bullet For My Valentine, Okieriete Onaodowan Meaning, Marquee Cinemas, Woburn Cinema Showtimes, Izombie Season 2 Episode 18 Cast, Brantley Gilbert Middle Name, Reagan Tax Cuts, Lady M Cake, Vue Cinema Food Prices 2020, Primark Job Description, Connie Steven Universe, Cbs Movies 2020, Noel Cantwell Grandson, Where Is The Walking Dead Filmed 2020,