USA / 2021 / 26 min / English
This electrifying one-woman performance by Carey Brianna Hart champions the power of voting. The character Bella is alone in her Miami apartment in 2020, isolating due to Covid. Her electricity and her cell phone have been turned off. She is about to give up on life, and is so distraught that she is considering suicide. Bella decides to record a video suicide note. As she speaks into the camera, viewers are taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. She recalls how moved she was by the courage of the Parkland school shooting survivors and this breaks the spell of sadness. As Bella takes a cue from those brave young people, she rallies and decides to become part of the call-to-action. Realizing she must vote in the upcoming election, Bella breaks through to a revelation of personal power. She recognizes that each of us still has the power to elect.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Ricky J. Martinez is an award-winning director and published playwright. He has been invited to direct for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival’s MFA Playwrights’ Workshop; Stanford University ’s National Center for New Plays; James Madison University and the Forbes Center; the Words A-Fire Festival in New Mexico; and other organizations across the country. His collaborations with playwrights on more than fifty world premiere plays have led to Pulitzer Prize finalists and wins, and the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association’s New Play Award finalists and wins. His directing credits include working at the MFA Playwrights’ Workshop at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival, Stanford University’s National Center for New Plays, and the Ignition Fest at Victory Gardens Theater, among others. Awards include the 2016 Margo Jones Award, and the 2016 Remy Pioneer Award. He served as the Artistic Director for Miami’s New Theatre. Nationally, he served on the Executive Committee for the National New Play Network; the Advisory Board of the Latino Theatre Commons; as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts; the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation; the National Fund for New Musicals; and San Antonio’s Luminaria Festival.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT:
“This film presents a clear ring of authenticity and activism, for us to get back on point,” says Ricky J. Martinez.
And to quote the star of the film, Carey Brianna Hart – “I drew inspiration for this performance from my mother’s Civil Rights activism in the 1960s. My mother was arrested for protesting the all-white Florida delegation to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, and her case went all the way to the Supreme Court. She was jailed in the 1960s for registering people to vote, making my performance a full-circle moment for me. So many have fought, struggled and died for the right to vote ̶ voting should never be taken for granted,” says Carey Brianna Hart.
And to quote the film’s writer, Bill Spring – “There is enormous power in artists working together, offering the viewer a passageway, inspiration, and igniting our collective spirit. In the years that have followed since the film’s original release, the story’s themes have carried through, foreshadowing the political apprehension we are all living through today. When we made this film in 2020, we could not have imagined the magnitude of how this story about voting would continue to resonate with the issues that threaten our fragile democracy today. Now more than ever, artists have no choice but to create. Storytelling is critical right now,” says the film’s writer Bill Spring.
Contact Email: editorial@newstravelsfast.com
Special Guests: Carey Brianna Hart, Bill Spring, Jose Lima
