Speller Street Films & Alter Eye Cinemaworks Presents Political Drama "White Face".

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Speller Street Films has announced a distribution partnership with Alter Eye Cinemaworks to release “White Face” on July 4, 2018 through Vimeo. “White Face” is a dramatic short film on the expression of the current culture wars involving race, identity, politics, and art. From documentaries to challenging narrative films, Speller Street Films wants to celebrate this year’s 4th of July with a film that asks us all to question what Frederick Douglass eloquently asked: “What is the 4th of July to the Negro?”

Originally premiering April 7, 2017 at Ashland Independent Film Festival in Ashland, Oregon, the film has had a successful run in a string of important film festivals and recently gave its final bow at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April.

Bold and gently surrealistic, “White Face” is about New York actor Charles Rodgers, who despises his black skin and all the hardships that come associating with being African-American. Feeling imprisoned by his race, Charles’ self-hatred and colonized mental disorder prescribes him to whiten his skin, don whiteface and blonde straight hair and in the most perverse way – emulate the President of the United States, Donald Trump. He is a black man declaring himself a winner in the zeitgeist by becoming a powerful white man. To join the system one must have a little bit of the “system” within them, no?

The film is a complex and layered movie and a literal commentary on the struggles actors of color have in conservatory programs, where they are often encouraged to “ignore” their racial background in favor of adopting a dangerous, if not hollow, nationalist identity of “American.” This casts a corrosive and toxic effect on black actors, in specific, and Mtume Gant’s provocative film challenges audiences to make these connections in our current political and social climate. What is race? What is identity? How are we perceived by others?

“We are thrilled to partner with Mtume Gant and Alter Eye Cinemaworks for the release of White Face,” said Speller Street Films President Christopher Everett. “The film is symbolic, beautifully shot, and ahead of its time. Audiences around the world are going to be in awe of it once they see this powerful film.”