MAIZE TO LINEN -A Project Of JOMA Arts in Development

Since early 2005 JOMA has been researching and developing a film project. The film will explore the overlooked and complex mixed heritage of Afro-Mexicans and their unusual migration to the American South. In the spring of 2008 JOMA completed at 7 minute intro/promo DVD for the larger film project.  Ultimately, it will be a ½ hour documentary that shows how the exploration and understanding of culture enables one to experience common bonds. When we experience culture we become more as a united nation and can empathize with the universal challenges faced by all people, not just as Latinos, African Americans or European-Americans independently.

With this film we step outside of the political debates to explore a culture and a people who face barriers in and away of their homeland. From the Southwest shores of Mexico to the tobacco fields and textile plants of North Carolina, from Maiz to Linen, is their story.

This short was featured (Sept. 08 - Jan. 09) in conjunction with the photography exhibition, "The African Presence in Mexico" at the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, NC.

UPDATE (Jan 2011): This project is currently on hold while we are pursuing funding. Please contact us if you are interested.

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1st Reading

"Voices of Freedom" 

October 2004 at Actors Theatre of Charlotte

2nd (Staged) Reading

Walkin' to be Free by Kenneth Carroll

July 2006 at Actors Theatre of Charlotte

3rd Reading

"Walkin' to be Free"- is a work-in-progress adapted from the book, "Voices of Freedom". The book was a supplement to a documentary film titled, “Eyes on the Prize” by Henry Hampton and aired on PBS stations in the late 1980’s.

It is a travelogue and a memory book of some of those voices who used the darkness of racism to define the light of freedom.Told through the voices of actual participants,  “Walkin ...” is grounded in a specific time period of the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) and weaves the viewer through a tapestry of situations ending in current times (21^st century), as seen – and told – through the eyes of Emmett Till.

UPDATE (Jan 2011): This project is currently on hold while we are pursuing funding. Please contact me if you are interested.

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