Drylongso

Art student Pica sees so many young black men in her neighbourhood die, often as a result of drug-related murders, that she decides to photograph them with her Polaroid camera while they are still around – like recording a species threatened by extinction. The violence – there’s also a mysterious serial killer active – comes scarily close when an innocent, good friend of hers becomes a victim.

Yet here in Drylongso (slang for ‘ordinary, everyday‘) it’s not about the men, but primarily about Pica herself, who is trying to keep going in a dysfunctional family with little money, and about her warm friendship with Tobi, another young African-American woman who is largely left to her own devices. This low-budget film picked up awards at various festivals, and can now be seen in a new 16mm print and provides an honest, wayward and eventually hopeful glimpse of a community in the Californian city of Oakland, where violence has become commonplace.

See also Sojourner, Black Utopia LP and compilation programme Calling Planet Earth.

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