Well I guess I’m officially a film producer now.
I’m proud to share that Offsides Productions’ first feature documentary is now out in the world and continuing its run on the festival circuit.
Directed by Francisco Núñez Capriles and Yvan Iturriaga, Fantastic Negrito: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? premiered last fall at the Mill Valley Film Festival to rave reviews. Just last month, the Pan African Film Festival awarded our film ‘Fantastic Negrito: Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?’ as the Best Documentary Feature at their Los Angeles festival last month. We are incredibly grateful to the PAFF team and all the audiences who have embraced the film.
The movie follows Grammy-winning musician Fantastic Negrito (who Yvan and I first collaborated with for the title song on our web series The North Pole) as he faces his demons amidst the mental health crisis ravaging his Oakland community. As he creates his most personal album yet, Negrito searches far and wide to answer the question: in a sick society, how do you keep from going crazy?
Filmmaking is the ultimate team sport, and we were blessed to work with a brilliant team on this one. I want to give a special shout out to our fearless editor Charnelle “Cha” Quallis. Documentaries really come together in post-production, and Cha absolutely killed it in crafting this story alongside Francisco, Yvan, and (less helpfully) myself. I also need to thank our amazing cinematograpers Andres Gallegos and Leo Maca, our sound designers at IMRSV Sound, the colorists/coffeemakers at Roast n Post, and all the many people who helped make this movie happen.
Fantastic Negrito is continuing its run on the festival circuit with our East Coast premiere this month weekend at the Salem Film Festival just outside of Boston. With more festival and university screenings coming this spring, here are the next opportunities to view the film around the country:
Salem Film Festival: March 26
Washington, DC International Film Festival: April 23 & April 29
San Francisco Doc Fest: June 1
Come check out the film — and reach out if you want to bring the movie to your community!