Sabaah Folayan is an activist and storyteller who illuminates the humanity, resilience and beauty in the struggle of communities as they mobilize and fight for justice. She merged her dedication to human rights and a newfound passion for film with Whose Streets?, a feature documentary chronicling the experience of Ferguson community members after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Sabaah and her co-director Damon Davis are premiering Whose Streets? at Sundance 2017, but this episode’s conversation took place in October of 2015, when Sabaah was still in the depths of production and stepped away to pitch the film at Camden International Film Festival’s Points North Forum in Maine. We talk with Sabaah about moving to Ferguson, working to understand the complexities of the situation amongst a sea of sensational headlines, the unique education she had between living off the land in Hawaii and living in divergent Los Angeles neighborhoods, and the forever valuable lesson she learned as a basketball player, “Everything you do is practice for the next time you do it.” The music in this episode is off Velvet and Bone, a new album by a past MusicMaker, Stag Hare.

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MUSIC in this episode is off a new album titled Velvet and Bone by past She Does MusicMaker and friend, Stag Hare. Willow (formerly Zara) is the MusicMaker behind Stag Hare and was featured in Episode 22.5. Listen to and buy her music via Bandcamp and visit her website and Facebook.

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“Space has been so privatized. We’ve been so socialized to be individuals and be on our own and our lives are our own little bubbles. I think that it was such a relief for people to just lock arms and say that ‘I’m feeling this too.’”

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Related LINKS:

• Sabaah's Website, Blog & Twitter
• Whose Streets? Documentary Website & Twitter
• Whose Streets? Sundance 2017 Screening Dates
• Sabaah and co-director Damon Davis as Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2016
• She Does: Race & Media live conversation at CIFF 2015 featuring Sabaah Folayan, Shayla Harris and Alex Hannibal

 

 

 

 

 

CLIPS used in show: 

• Riot Footage From Inside The Battle of Ferguson 
• Ferguson Shooting 2015
• Startling cell phone video from Michael Brown shooting scene

CREDITS:

• Produced by Sarah Ginsburg & Elaine Sheldon
• Sound design by Billy Wirasnik
• Illustration by Christine Cover