Destroy the Medium, destroy the message=destroy the problem.
Punk+Hip-Hop+Acting+Directing equals a new guerrilla filmmaking aesthetic.
If the Clash and Public Enemy had been filmmakers, what and how might they have expressed? The answer could be this startling clip from that short-lived movement’s crystallized example: Dennis Leroy Kangalee’s cinematic tone poem “As an Act of Protest.”
In this scene, Cairo (Che Ayende) erupts and destroys his television that has just featured the Mayor on a program where he defends police brutality & the murder of Cairo’s young brother, George. It is at this very moment that Cairo has already crossed the line and is no longer able to look back…
This visceral feature film from 2001 is a clear ‘line in the sand’ which demands the eradication of racism and, sadly, relevant and meaningful in light of the murders of Aiyana Jones and Trayvon Martin. The movie was originally conceived in 2000 as a direct response to the Mayor Giuliani-Administration’s-NYPD murder of Amadou Diallo in 1999. For obvious reasons, “As an Act of Protest” has become of one of the underrated gems of the 21st Century American independent film movement.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 