RM.19 NEWSLETTER JANUARY '25

VOLUME 14 // JAN '25

January 22, 2025

Happy January, friends and family -

We are BACK with your monthly dose of creative goodness!! We’ll be real - this monthly update is a tough one, with an administration more hellbent than ever on removing protections for women, queer folks, the environment, and more. But here at RM.19, we believe that the stories we tell about ourselves and each other MATTER. And our goals to create intersectional community with women/nb filmmakers and uplift their stories will not be changing regardless of who’s in charge. So stick with us - whether you’re a creative or a supporter of all things creative, we hope you find something here that you’re into <3

Lots of love,

Imani, Jamie, & Julia

YEAR ONE UPDATE

As Imani has been giving us updates on the terrifying situation in Los Angeles, we got some heartwarming news from RM.19’s debut feature, Year One.

This week, director Lauren Loesberg partnered with The Future of Film is Female for a New York screening. Proceeds went to Red Cross to help those in need after the Los Angeles fires.

Year One follows Ruby, who, after a series of events during her freshman year of college, is sent on a downward spiral, culminating in the arrival of a glamorous alter ego who begins to live a life of her own.

We love to see our work being used as a force for good in our communities!!

Frequent collaborator and composer Yuxin Lu watching a first look from Roller Babiez

POST

POST

POST

We are moving and grooving on post-production for the shorts we filmed last year, as well as our feature film Roller Babiez. Director Jamie Kreppein and editor Matthew Freer have been hard at work in the editing room, with only a month before the whole film is assembled. Then it’s onto music, animation, and color!!

Matthew working on a scene from Roller Babiez

A sneak peek of Primos

Another first look at Primos

Director Yesenia Esteban also sent us a fantastic update and a few favorite shots this month on her debut short film, Primos. The film is on track to be finished this spring after a couple rounds of sound, music, and color. We can’t wait to share this coming-of-age story of two cousins struggling to figure out their next moves amidst opinions from friends and family as high school graduation approaches.

TAKE

ACTION WITH

ART

Join us in seeing ‘No Other Land’ - one of the three films from Palestine shortlisted for the Oscars this year. As of publication, this film has not found distribution in the United States so it’s extremely impactful to support it at local screenings. Here’s a couple places to see it in Chicago this Oscar season:

Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community's mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families - the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist who joins his struggle, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

Also a shortlisted feature, ‘From Ground Zero’ is available online. If ‘An Orange from Jaffa’ gets nominated in the shorts category, hopefully it will be available to watch for us folks who aren’t good at finding things in the far corners of the internet! For now, we’ve linked you to the trailer.