On Monday, March 29, Cinema Politica hosted a discussion with director Ashley O’Shay (UNAPOLOGETIC), Charlene A. Carruthers (Black Youth Project 100) and Marlihan Lopez (Coalition to Defund the Police-Montreal). This conversation was inspired by movements against police brutality and demands to defund the police across the United States and Canada.
This event was co-presented by Coalition to Defund the Police – Montreal, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP), and Protests and Pedagogy.
ABOUT THE FILM
After two police killings, Black millennial organizers challenge a Chicago administration complicit in state violence against its Black residents. Told through the lens of Janaé and Bella, two fierce abolitionist leaders, UNAPOLOGETIC is a deep look into the Movement for Black Lives, from the police murder of Rekia Boyd to the election of mayor Lori Lightfoot.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ashley O’Shay is a Chicago-based documentarian who has produced work for a number of national brands including Lifetime, Ford Motor Company, Boost Mobile, KQED, and Dr. Martens. Recently, O’Shay’s work appeared in the critically-acclaimed Lifetime docuseries SURVIVING R. KELLY. UNAPOLOGETIC marks O’Shay’s first foray into the feature world. The film follows Janaé and Bella, two young abolitionist organizers, as they work within the Movement for Black Lives to seek justice for Rekia Boyd and Laquan McDonald, two young Black people killed by Chicago police.
Charlene A. Carruthers is a political strategist, cultural worker and PhD student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her research includes Black feminist political economies, abolition of patriarchal and carceral systems, and the role of cultural work within the Black Radical Tradition.
Marlihan Lopez is a Black feminist activist and community organizer tackling issues surrounding anti-blackness, gendered based sexual violence and its intersections. She coordinated the intersectionality division for the Quebec Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres, where she did advocacy work and raises awareness on how gender, race, class and ability intersect in the context of sexual violence. She has also organized with movements such as Black Lives Matter and Montréal Noir around issues such as racial profiling and police brutality. She is currently co-Vice-President for la Fédération des femmes du Québec and Program and Outreach Coordinator at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute. She is also a co-founding member of the Coalition to Defund the Police in Montreal, Quebec.
