"Reading Between the Rhymes"

After learning that 50 percent of Oakland teenagers didn’t graduate high school in 2004, SF State graduate filmmaker Keith Morikawa created “Reading Between the Rhymes," a documentary that examines the growing number of educators who have turned to hip-hop music and culture as a learning tool.

“This movie is making a point that you have to listen to the youth because everyone talks about what’s good for the kids and how to reach them, but we always forget to ask them,” said Morikawa. “Hip-hop is what they’re into and it’s shunned by adults.”

To film the movie, 24-year-old Morikawa and his crew from BECA 647, an advanced video production class, filmed from San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland all the way to the Bronx, talking to educators who see students failing high school and are trying to find other ways to connect.

Morikawa found a “B-girl” who uses break dance moves to teach physics and the laws of motions and a teacher who uses hip-hop lyrics from artists like Nas and Digital Underground and compares it with classical poetry.

“Reading Between the Rhymes” also features commentary from hip-hop pioneer Almighty Key Gee of the Cold Crush Brothers, M-1 of Dead Prez, Tajai of Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics, and Peace of the Freestyle Fellowship.

The documentary features parents and artists who think hip-hop in the academic space is distracting and destructive rather than supportive and creative.

“There are more (gangster rappers like) 50 Cent than there are (positive rappers like) Common and Kanye West in hip-hop,” Morikawa said. “It’s stupid to think that (high school students) aren’t going to hear it.

“If we help kids understand what they see and look at, the artists and their goals, we could help them critically consume the value of the entertainment versus reality.”

Morikawa is currently a line producer at UTH TV (pronounced youth) for a show called “Speak on It” that airs on UPN Saturday at 7:30 pm.

"Pas de Deux"

Paris native Barbara Grandvoinet said she always wanted to be a ballerina. Now through her film "Pas de Deux," 25-year-old Grandvoinet has captured the struggle of two 12-year-old girls from Berkeley who created their own dance company.

The film focuses on Johanna Poz Moleski and Anne Rigney, the founders of En Pointe Youth Dance Company.

It outlines the struggles of two young girls who juggle school with sewing dance costumes, choreographing routines, earning rent for rehearsal spaces and show rooms, raising funds, and calling around for publicity.

Through her film, Grandvoinet said, she seeks to leave audiences with a lesson on risk-taking, commitment and teamwork.

“The film shows the feeling that you can be 12 years old and be ambitious and have dreams,”
Grandvoinet said. “If you are passionate and a hard worker you can do whatever you want in life.”

Grandvoinet, who graduated as a BECA major in the fall of 2004, made the film during an advanced video production class taught by Professor John Hewitt. Now she is a lecturer in the BECA department, teaching a video production class.

Although this is the first time her film will be showcased in a film festival, Grandvoinet said she is not new at documentary filmmaking.

Grandvoinet is also a freelance editor and producer and works with independent filmmakers. In the future, she said, she hopes to have the film nationally broadcast.

"Yume"

Inspired by the life of Salvador Dali, first-time filmmaker Yoko Tsuda’s “Yume” is a film that creates a surrealistic vision of the subconscious imagery of dreams and memory.

Tsuda, who wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film, dissects and explores the complex relationship between artist and muse.

“’Yume’ has its own voice that speaks to each viewer individually,” said Japanese-born Tsuda. “In the tradition of surrealism, my intention is not to provide answers, but instead to provoke questions."

“I believe that this process of provocation invites the audience to enter the world of ‘Yume’ and become an active participant in the experience.”

Taking a technique that Dali used to tap into his subconscious, the low budget film seeks to create an emotional vision, Tsuda explained.

“A key moment in the film is the dropping of the spoon,” said Tsuda, 35. "This scene was inspired by Dali's real life experience.”

To further explore the subconscious mind, Dali would sometimes sit in a chair with a spoon in his hand, Tsuda said. As he dozed off, the spoon would slowly slip from his hand and clatter on the floor, and Dali would awaken and sketch or paint whatever was in his mind at the moment.

“(Dali) believed this was a technique to open the doors to his subconscious,” Tsuda said. “My recreation of this event serves as a transition from the reality of the artist sitting in his studio to the surreal world of memory and emotion.”

FilmFest 2005 will feature the premiere of “Yume,” and Tsuda said she aspires to leave audiences with a message to “believe in yourself.”

"Muse"

Juggling a combination of personal ego battles, issues surrounding God and PMS, writer and director Rachel Elizabeth Bauer was able to create her film, “Muse."

Bauer's "Muse" takes viewers on a "pointless" journey with the character Steve, a film writer who struggles for inspiration while writing a movie about inept vampires.

A former belly dancer, Bauer said she put her gold and white costume to good use while starring in her film as Maya, the bratty cinema muse that is sent to inspire a college student to write a screenplay.

As her inspiration fails, God and Steve’s roommate get involved, leading to a comic situation and a lot of arguing on and off the set.

“I was physically unwell during the entire shoot, PMSing one week and on my period the next, plus Cristian (who plays God) and I had personality conflicts with Sam (who plays the roommate) throughout the bulk of the entire production process,” Bauer said. “Needless to say Maya's brattiness came naturally.

“It actually scared Cristian a few times because my frustration was manifesting itself in my performance on camera.”

With all conflicts aside, the short film successfully reached completion.

“I was trying for something amusing and intelligent above all, but the point I was trying to make, that nothing is hopeless, it just may require a different approach,” Bauer explained.

Bauer and her boyfriend/co-director Cristian Alvarado, 20, both cinema majors at SF State, said they made the film for fun.

“Being as the film was not made for distribution in the most general sense of the word, I really think (the film’s) eventual fate is to end up on our personal reels,” Alvarado said.