Join us for a special screening of Free The People, a 3-part docuseries detailing DC's 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising from the frontlines at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Auditorium.
Following the screening film makers Kintsugi Kelley-Chung and Andrew "Jazzy" Jasuira will discuss the making of the film and why they thought it was important to tell the story.
Free The People is a docutrilogy from the streets of DC, detailing the efforts of front-line activists fighting in the 2020 movement for Black lives.
This raw documentary film series tells the unknown stories of activists who dedicated their lives to protesting the end of police brutality and envision a safer society.
Spanning from June through Thanksgiving, this docuseries highlights the mutual aid, marches, and growth of the community, while also exposing the dangerous and violent altercations between protestors and police.
Free The People was directed, shot, and edited by Kintsugi Kelley-Chung & Andrew Jasiura. Produced by RXNIN LIFE, and made possible by community support.
For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.
Kintsugi Kelley-Chung was born as Kian Kelley-Chung on May 14, 1997, in the suburban town of Columbia, MD. His father, a first generation Chinese-Jamaican freelance photographer, and mother, a half Black-half Japanese wellness center owner, raised him and his sister to be ambitious, driven, and independent.
Growing up in a creative and entrepreneurial household, a career in the arts felt more like nature than choice. Pairing his curiosity with his creativity, Kintsugi explored various mediums, spanning music, photography, film, poetry and prose. Unwilling to solely follow one artform, Sugi sought to create a platform that would allow him and other incredible creatives to pursue all of their artistic endeavors and shed the feeling of being boxed in.
Kintsugi founded RXNIN LIFE in his freshman dorm room at the University of Maryland, College Park. Throughout his artistic career, he battled with his identity, going by several artist aliases, where he eventually landed on the name Uncle Iso, inspired by the “uncle” trope of being the fun sage of wisdom and the connection ISO has to light and solitude.
His birth name, Kian, having two pronunciations (Key-in and Key-on) raised him with a defining identity crisis. Constantly feeling like he had to choose between two sides of himself in the context of familial, social and political pressures, he was forced to think critically about the concepts of identity and self-discovery. At the age of 25, after attending the NeXt Doc Film Fellowship retreat and a attending a workshop with Dr. Kameelah Rashad, he reimagined the power he had in naming himself beyond an artistic moniker and chose to change his name to Kintsugi, in honor of reclaiming his Japanese heritage and the word’s meaning as it regards to healing and identity through time.
Beyond breaking barriers in the creative world, Kintsugi also aims to break social barriers by joining his artistic craft with social justice and minority advocacy. As a firm believer in art’s power to change society, his work is largely based in anti-racist, feminist and queer theorist pedagogy with a goal of aiding in the fight for total liberation of all oppressed peoples.
Kintsugi’s main goal in life is to inspire others to make whatever reality they want, become what they have. Never limit yourself, and always strive for more. Be you and be great.
Andrew “Jazzy” Jasiura is a photographer and filmmaker originally from Western New York. Jazzy has always been a quiet person, so when he picked up a camera for the first time in 2014, he learned that he could let the pictures speak for him.
He got involved in RXNIN in 2017, helping the collective grow visually as the lead photographer. As the group got more gigs, Jazzy switched his camera into video mode and began his career as a photo/videographer. However, he credits his experience in Tijuana filming the Documentary for HUMANO as the moment he became a filmmaker. He is currently developing a series of documentaries comparing the ongoing protest movements in Hong Kong and the United States.
Andrew has grown as an artist, expanding his network to have worked with Robin Bell, Solomon Renfro, Stretch Dynamo, Seagraves, Real Fake Band, and Glover Official just to name a few. He has also done photo work for the environmental non-profit, MobilizeGreen. Jazzy grew into his role as Creative Director in 2018.
Jazzy is known to be a lighthearted intellectual, always known for his curiosity and desire to explore every angle of a story. While maintaining a hold on the abstract side of art, Andrew makes a strong push for investigative journalism, hoping to amplify the voices of the people whose stories need to be heard. Jazzy wants his art to be powerful, often uncomfortable, but always inspiring questions. His style of direction aims to drop the audience into the scene for them to experience it, rather than simply watching a screen.
AGE GROUP: | Adults | 13 - 19 Years Old (Teens) |
EVENT TYPE: | Film | Black History Month |
