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This past Friday was completely dedicated to Kinloch. During my lunch break, I met with Emma Riley, another Wash U alum and producer/director of Displaced – a short film about the erasure of Blacks in the City Clayton, MO.

One of my professors sent me the link to her short film earlier this year and after I watched it, I immediately reached out to her. I let her know that I was interested in learning her story and how she went about doing the film and why. Since then, we stayed in touch and agreed to be each other’s accountability partner as she is also seeking to extend her film. B/c she is moving to Seattle within the next few weeks, we are discussing other means of communication that will continue to hold us accountable.

I’m sure other creatives can agree that it feels extremely good to be able to articulate the things that go on in your brain and someone else gets you without criticism or judgement. That is how all of our conversations have been thus far.

We ended our meeting with some tasks we need to have completed by the next time we meet:

(1) Answer the question, “who is this film for and who is my audience?”

(2) What is my theme?

(3) Set deadline to launch the site

Later in the evening, I met up with a young lady named Emily and her mother. Emily is a former Holy Angels student and her mother (as well as her late grandmother) were educators in Kinloch all at the same time –  three generations of educators in Kinloch. They talked to me about the quality education that students were receiving from Holy Angels, especially since it was the only school still open in Kinloch after the school district dissolved. To hear their perspectives was beyond interesting because although they didn’t live there, they always felt apart of the community and no one treated them any different. That very sentiment speaks to one of the central themes of the film: community. These conversations always get me excited about following through with the film, even in the moments I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I just know I am SUPPOSED to do it.

Purpose is a mother…..