Jean & Ivana: a mother and a director
Jean Corbett-Parker is a longtime resident of Harlem, New York.
Her son, LaTraun Parker, died on April 28, 2001 outside a nightclub at the corner of 7th Avenue and 131st Street, when an assailant unknown to him placed a gun at the back of his head, and squeezed the trigger. At the time of his death, LaTraun was 26 years old.
“For two and a half years, I couldn’t walk in a crowd without holding the back of my head,” Ms. Corbett-Parker said. “When I lost my son, I was a lunatic. I was just walking.” Eventually, she decided to put her grief to good use, and became one of the founding members of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E.
http://harlemmotherssave.com/founders.html
Ivana Todorović is a self-proclaimed video street fighter from Belgrade, Serbia. She has shot, directed and co-produced three short social documentary films in Belgrade and New York City on low-to-no-budget, with the aim of both helping the people she filmed and producing social change.
Her documentaries tackle diverse social issues such as gun violence, homelessness, and the poor living conditions of the Roma children in Serbia. Her films were shown on over 40 International Film Festivals and used in university and high school classroom education. Her films have won acclaim at the Mixed Messages Film Festival in New York, the Ethnographic Film Festival in Belgrade and the Human Rights Film Festival in Montreal.
http://www.der.org/films/filmmakers/ivana-todorovic.html
HOW IVANA MET JEAN:
“During my first few days in New York where I came to study documentary film at the New School, I wound up in Harlem after a spontaneous subway ride. I met some of the most amazing elderly people who were members of Frederic Samuels’ Democratic Club and I decided to join Club. I began to attend their meetings, and grew increasingly interested in their discussions, as I come from a country in which democracy is fairly new concept.
“During one of the meetings Jean Corbett-Parker told the news of another victim of gun violence, a young man shot by a peer. She urged the club to act. I was amazed by her community activism and wanted to know more. After she introduced herself as the mother of a murdered son and co-founder of ‘Harlem Mothers,’ an organization that fights youth gun violence and helps other parents survive the pain of losing loved ones, I was struck by the desire to make a film concerning her struggle! After introducing myself to her, and building a connection to her fight, Jean then offered me documentary film and archival footage made by her son LaTraun about the harshness of growing up in Harlem, and his search for his father. This developed into a dialogue about a mother and her son whose relationship was broken by the youth gun violence present in Harlem; the dialogue eventually grew into this present day documentary focusing on youth gun violence.
“As I followed Jean’s story and watched the people around her cope and persevere, the strength of this group of people and their commitment to their cause gave me the strength to make this very emotionally challenging film.
“During the course of shooting this film, two more young kids were shot dead in Harlem. Telling the parents’ side of this terrible epidemic became increasingly urgent. After the film was made, Jean started using the film in the promotion of her Harlem Mothers organization on anti-youth gun violence campaigns in her neighborhood in Harlem.”
IMPORTANT WEBSITES TO CHECK:
Harlem Mothers ◦ http://harlemmotherssave.com/
New Yorkers Against Gun Violence ◦ http://www.nyagv.org/
DCTV Beyond Bullets Campaign ◦ http://beyondbullets.org/