‘Fortunately in life I was never afraid to shoot. I wasn’t afraid to leave my neighborhood and be what I set out to become’ – Adina Howard
Back in May I was lucky enough get be invited to watch a preview of Rebel Life Media’s documentary on 90’s RnB sexpot Adina Howard ‘Adina 20: A Story of Sexual Liberation’ and I wrote about it here. Well, it seems like the movie has been gaining some pretty decent momentum over the summer and the movie has now been shown at various film festivals around the US with screenings taking place at:
- Luminal Theater in Brooklyn, NY (Sept. 12, 2015)
- Grand Rapids Feminist Film Festival in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Sept. 13, 2015)
- Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival in Cleveland, Ohio (Sept. 18, 2015)
- Lake Erie Arts & Film Festival in Sandusky, Ohio (Sept. 19, 2015)
The team behind the movie have been documenting their progress and have now published a tour documentary to accompany the film which acts as a great platform for them to talk about their doc. You get to see snippets of the film itself as well as interviews and opinions on the film from some of the film festival organisers and Q&A sessions they’ve held along the way. I commented in my initial review of the film that one of the downsides was the only song they seemed to have permission to play in the movies was Freak Like Me and although it’s an amazing song, it would have been nice to hear some of her other stuff as well. This issue appears to have been ironed out in this tour film as we now indeed get to hear some of Adina’s perhaps lesser known tracks as well as a super sexy remix of Freak Like Me (which I’d never heard before and is pretty darn good!)
The best about this tour doc though is that the one question that the movie didn’t answer and something I’m sure everyone in the UK who’s heard Freak Like Me would like to know is: What does Adina think of the Sugababes version?
You’re going to have to watch to find out the answer but I’m SO pleased it was asked!
You can watch the tour doc here:
When I spoke to producer Gezus Zaire of Rebel Life Media he told me:
‘I’m an African American and in my neighborhood where I grew up a lot of black guys could easily shoot a basketball. I never could. My shot was so bad that people laughed at me and never really wanted me to play on their team. I was very embarrassed by it an would rarely shoot in front of people. The result is that I never got better at shooting because I never was bold enough to just shoot the ball despite what people thought. Fortunately in life I was never afraid to shoot. I wasn’t afraid to leave my neighborhood and be what I set out to become. Many of those same guys didn’t have courage or ambition to be more than backyard hoopers while I went forward and became a nationally published journalist, disc jockey and now a filmmaker whose work is being shown internationally. Adina Howard 20 was started with no money but I wasn’t afraid to shoot and less than two years later the film has landed my company’s name in major publications such as New York Magazine and Ebony Magazine. My advice to any creative person is to never be afraid to shoot in life. You may miss but who cares. You can’t make a shot that you don’t take.
If you want to see the whole movie you can do so here:
http://www.adina20.com/
Follow the great lady herself on Twitter here: @adinahoward
Or the filmmakers here: @RebelLifeMedia