FILM
WE STAY IN THE HOUSE (2021)
DIRECTOR/EDITOR/PRODUCER
Dir. Kiyoko McCrae | Prod. Eritria Pitts | Director of Photography. Bron Moyi | Music by Peter J. Bowling | Created in Collaboration with Ashleigh Branch, Lauren E. Turner, Tiffany Vega-Gibson | An intimate portrait of four mothers in New Orleans as they struggle to care for their families and themselves throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Between taking care of their children, finding time to work, and coping with personal loss and health crises, these women's stories represent the lived realities of millions of mothers in America. Part of the HINDSIGHT series, an initiative created by Firelight Media, Reel South and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), to chronicle the contemporary lived experiences of communities of color in the South and Puerto Rico during the unprecedented experience of 2020.
COME HOME (2017)
CO-DIRECTOR/PRODUCER
A Junebug Productions/Visible Productions Film | Directed by Kiyoko McCrae and Jason Foster | Edited by Jason Foster | Written and performed by Frederick "Hollywood" Delahoussaye | Director of Photography: Paavo Hanninen | Assistant Camera: John Carlo-Monti | Production Assistant: Remy Williams | Starring Asana Olusola | Music by free feral | Special Thanks to Community Book Center, Black Star Books and Caffe, Sanctuary Cultural Arts Center, Backyard Gardeners Network, Jenga Mwendo, Worklight Pictures, The Greenhouse Collective
Black Back (2017)
Co-Director/Producer
This is a promotional video for the theater production, Gomela/to return: Movement of Our Movement Tongue which was presented in January at the Ashé Powerhouse by Junebug Productions. "Black Back", written and performed by Sunni Patterson is one of the many poems featured in Gomela. The full version of "Black Back" will be released later this month.
Directors: Kiyoko McCrae & Jason Foster | Editor: Jason Foster | Cinematographers: Scott McKibben & Zac Manuel | Assistant Camera: Ben Long | Sound Designer: David Bear | Sound Engineer: Abraham Kinkoph | Production Assistant: Remy Williams, Damia Khanboubi | Costume Designers: Janese (AYA Designs) & Kiyoko McCrae | Makeup: Nialah Howard (Magnolia Makeup) | Performers: Sunni Patterson, Kesha McKey, Kai Knight, Jeremy Guyton | Special Thanks: Studio BE, Kathleen Kraus and Benjamin Arthur Ellis, Lily Keber (Mairzy Doats Productions)
BLACK WOMAN JUJU (2018)
DIRECTOR/EDITOR
Black Woman Juju written and performed by Sunni Patterson | Directed & Edited by Kiyoko McCrae | Cinematography by Kiyoko McCrae, Zac Manuel, Paavo Hanninen, Jason Foster | Music: November Mist by Blue Dot Sessions
IN DEVELOPMENT
Within, Within
Within, Within is a poetic documentary about generational trauma of war and violence as I journey back to my hometown Tokyo and reflect on my own experiences with war and violence making connections between my grandmother’s experience of coming to age during World War II, my mother’s experience of being born in post-war Tokyo and her anti-war activism during the Vietnam war and my own experience of war as an anti-war activist in Iraq in 2004. The film combines voice-over narration, interviews, family photographs and home videos, shadow puppetry animation with original footage of my family and places my grandmother, mother and I grew up in Japan. It is currently in development phase and is slated to start early production in summer 2020.
The premise of this documentary stems from a realization that I had when I was pregnant with my daughter. All baby girls are born with all the eggs that they will ever have in their ovaries. Therefore, when a woman is pregnant with a girl, she carries three generations in her body. This powerful realization made me feel an immediate connection to my grandmother. I imagine my grandmother, pregnant with my mother, a few short years after World War II had ended, in a war-ravaged, American-occupied Tokyo, the seed of myself already planted inside my mother, inside her, within, within. And I wonder, if something from that time was passed down to me, the trauma of war, and the strong resolve of its people to never engage in war again. How did three generations of women make the choices they made in relation to state-sanctioned violence and war?
