 Aloha and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King, and today we are here celebrating African American History Month as we conclude the eighth annual African American Film Festival. We have a guest with us today who is going to help us celebrate just a little bit more. But before we get to that, I want to tell you that you can catch me live at five on Wednesdays at the Think Tech Hawaii Facebook page and on ThinkTechHawaii.com and after the show you can catch me on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel at the Crossroads playlist. Today we are on the heels of the 2019 Oscars award ceremony where Spike Lee won. Finally, we were so excited to see him in his all purple outfit with hat and shoes and glasses to match. We were all so thrilled to see him run and jump into the arms of Samuel L. Jackson and celebrate at the end of the evening with all the greats including Denzel Washington and Will Smith amongst many others including like Wesley Snipes was there. They all paid homage to the Morehouse University alum as he celebrated his first Oscar win. Many people felt like it was well deserved but delayed. Well he not only attended the Oscars and won one of the big ones but he also celebrated with his Morehouse family and his New York University family. So today we decided to have a conversation with another filmmaker director and producer Kiera C. Jones who is visiting with us not too long ago during the eighth annual African American Film Festival where she debuted her film 21 and Done. So welcome with me to the show Kiera C. Jones. Hello Kiera. Aloha. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much. It is so good to see you again. I just saw you for the first time in person two weeks ago. Tell me how was your visit to lovely Hawaii this time? You know it's interesting. I happened to visit Hawaii in the coldest February in history. I think it was and shockingly I had brought all these wonderful warm weather clothes and then had to stretch out my New York airport wardrobe to make it through my few days but it was still beautiful. The air was wonderful and fresh. I rode my bike. I had an amazing time with the beautiful Honolulu Museum and the African American Film Festival and it was just an amazing experience. Indeed it was equally amazing for us to have you and you are correct. The weather was crisper than it normally is but it was still warmer than where you are in New York right? It was definitely warmer than New York and most definitely warmer than New York today which is a balmy 29 degrees. Oh my goodness. I'm still wearing my beautiful Aloha Sun Kiss Blow so I carried some of it some of the warm Hawaii back with me. Well good good for you and we were so delighted and honored to have you as you brought 21 and done a wonderful wonderful film documentary in fact where we had the pleasure of meeting some new characters that you don't get to see in film and the film went over the experiences and challenges of aging out of the foster care system. So can you talk to us a little bit about that and then we're going to show your trailer for the movie? Well my dear friend and colleague, Jocelyn Scott, brought me this project a few years ago. She had been working in television news and had experienced bands that would go out in the middle of the night and provide just toiletries, food, small items to young people. These bands would pull up and then out of the darkness young people would come and they would come and they would take soap and toothpaste and food and socks and you know just small toiletries things that they can carry and and then they would disappear to the darkness and she said it haunted her to know where these children were coming from and where they were going to and that sort of engaged her mind into this idea about adopted children and foster care and homeless children and all that sort of thing. And so she brought the project to me and we initially thought when we discovered that this aging out situation was a real problem for a very specific community that could be really helped with the right attention because most of the problem is that people don't understand that though the government is willing to take responsibility for young people and children in most states all states have an age at which the government no longer feels responsible for the children. In New York where we live it's 21 and Hawaii where you are it's 18. Neither of those ages are I feel personally old enough for a young person to be out on their own especially considering that these young people don't have the social currency that most young people might have. They don't have extended family necessarily. They don't have long-term relationships built with basketball coaches or teachers or church members of people who will journey with them through their life not only in times of trouble but in times of triumphors as well. So we felt like we really needed to make this film and there was an immediate key to making this film. So we did our film in New York 21 and done and felt this on the plight of children aging out of foster care there. Now I'll tell you our big concern was we initially wanted to go across the nation with this film. We wanted to get a nationwide perspective of what was happening to these young people and how they were being affected by the gaps in the system but unfortunately as independent filmmakers we weren't able to get the funding that we needed to take the story that far. But everywhere that we've shown the film though I've had this concern about it being a New York story and maybe that people wouldn't be able to relate everywhere you've taken the film even in Honolulu people have come and said you could have made this film right here. This is our story too. We understand the plight of these children uniquely and specifically and you know they appreciate the work of the film. So we've done this film and now our goal is to get it out there and to present it to communities so that we can have a better awareness of what's going on with these young people and find new ways to help them. Thank you so much you are exactly right. That story was easily transferable to any state in our country and so thank you so much for producing something and creating something that tells a different story than what we normally see. At this time I want to explain to our viewers that we are having a little bit of a challenge with seeing Kiera so it looks a little bit glitchy when we see your face just so you know so we might want to just stay steady as we can that might help with that. At this time however we're going to show a trailer from the movie 21 and done. Let's listen and watch right here. Confessions of a foster kid. I lived in over 10 foster homes. Can you hear me? And unfortunately in my childhood I had a lot to worry about that I pretty much offended myself. Is this thing on? I don't feel like that the system took you know the responsibility over me. Something's wrong. We feel rejected. We feel abandoned. We feel alone. Every two minutes a child is entered into this system known to make lives or break lives, break lives and take lives. These kids age out the system. There's three places they go. To jail. To the menstrual institutions or they die. This life is built on numbers and numbers make up time. How many kids will age out? 23,400. I'm 21 years old. I'm gonna be 22, 23, 24. What's gonna happen to me down the road? Wow. That was simply amazing. I just watched at the African American Film Festival and I just thought what a heart-wrenching story that happens all around us. And I saw some very familiar faces such as DMC in the movie from the rap group Run DMC. Tell us about how he got pulled into sharing and how he contributes in your efforts or in those efforts. Well you know it's a main thing. Pretty much everyone you know probably knows someone who is in foster care or has an experience with someone who's in foster care or adoption. DMC has a very, Gerald McGuang was a very unique story in that he discovered that he was adopted as an adult. And once he found out he was adopted he questioned well what happens to all the kids who don't get adopted. And then he discovered they end up in foster care and a lot of times they end up without as we were talking about earlier the support that they needed. So he and his partner Sheila founded an organization called Camp Felix. And Camp Felix is a camp, a summer camp for kids who are in foster care. It's a place where they can go annually to explore nature and swim and run and jump and play like kids they're supposed to do in the summertime and sort of be away from that whole foster system. But at the same time have the support they need from people who understand the pains and trials that they might be going through and that can give them the help and attention that they need. So it was interesting the more we told the story and told people that we were doing this story the more that people told shared with them their shared with us their own story. You know there but for the grace of God go on you know. It's a very slippery slope where the parental cradle can be cracked and a child can end up in a foster care system. It happens in a myriad of ways and it often happens very fast and unexpectedly. So you have to say if you know anyone in your community is supporting a foster child or interested in supporting a foster child this is a community that greatly needs help with support in a lot a lot of ways and there's ways that you can you can get involved without getting in it. Well we are going to get to that thank you for sharing because support is the key word and we want to touch base on how we can support and how we can help those who find themselves in that situation and how we can help others who are helping others. For example one thing that we shared during the discussion and question and answer segment was that sometimes the foster families need support. So there are people who are neighbors of someone who can offer support. So we're going to take a very quick break and come right back and we'll talk about more ways we can support and then we're going to find out about you and how we can find this movie and what other projects you have coming up. Okay we'll be right back at the crossroads after this. Aloha I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii and on our show we talk about taking your health back and what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health whatever it means let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hey Stand Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stand Energy Man at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour we're going to talk about everything energy especially if it begins with the word hydrogen we're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stand Energy Man Aloha. Aloha this is Winston Welch I am your host of Out and About where every other week Mondays at three we explore a variety of topics in our city state nation and world and events organizations the people that fuel them it's a really interesting show we welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows you got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well so I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics you're going to learn a lot you're going to come away inspired like I do so I'll see you every other week here at three o'clock on Monday afternoon Aloha and welcome back we are back at the Crossroads I'm your host Keisha King here at Think Tech Hawaii and you can catch me every Wednesday live at five on ThinkTechHawaii.com and on Facebook at Think Tech Hawaii page and then after the show you can find me on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel today we are here with our guest Kiara C. Jones and she is the filmmaker director and producer her latest film that we are discussing today is 21 and done it talks about the experiences of those who age out of the foster care system the unique challenges and trauma that they faced Kiara welcome back to at the Crossroads thank you again for sharing so before we went on our break you were telling us how we can support others while they are helping those who are coming out of foster care and while they are helping the actual individuals anything else you want to share without about supporting those yeah it's our documentary we tried to make a film that was a film about a triumph that respected the young people who were going through these challenges and that highlighted the people who were closing the gaps where the where there might be holes in the system and everywhere returned we discovered in big ways in small ways there are people in the community that were willing and excited to help out for instance we found bakeries that would be willing to bake cupcakes for your child if you had a foster child we found dance studios that would be willing to get scholarships we found writing programs we found summer camps many many different things so if you are interested in supporting a foster care a foster child or a foster family community no matter where you're watching if you're watching in Hawaii the partners and development foundation there's thrive if you just google foster care that whatever's happening in your community will pop up and those people are always looking for volunteer help you can volunteer for a day you can volunteer for a weekend you can you can offer to support maybe take a few kids to a movie it's small things go a long long way in this community and something like that like taking a couple of kids to a movie get the parents a break a much needed breakfast and help them out you know a meal share you know there's so many things that that could easily be donated that they just need to get the support into the right hand exactly and I find that direct support is most beneficial when you are able to actually help an individual family when you look at your neighbors and you see that they're doing this just simply reach out like you said a movie I like what you did there because it could be one of yours but anyone's movie would be really really good because it's two hours away and it helps the child escape and it also does help the family get that well needed respite that's so deserving so thank you for producing and creating a story that often goes overlooked and easily forgotten thank you for bringing it to the forefront of our consciousness it's so necessary and thank you for bringing the film to Honolulu you know I would love to be invited to the film festival with my previous feature film and they invited me back with this film and I was so excited and so excited to meet the people in your community the that Ohana is that how they say yes Ohana the family here yeah the foster family in Hawaii that's right thank you for that you know I wish I could say you're you're welcome on behalf of all of us but really that was the board of directors there at the Honolulu African-American film festival they bring excellent talent every year this is their eighth year I think we're going to show some pictures from that evening's event where we had wonderful musicians and artists there's a picture of some of the members of the board there with you and myself included and we have other pictures that's you and I doing a quick selfie because you were just glowing that night amazing and just thank you so much for how did you get involved in that you mentioned your first feature film which was Christmas wedding baby Christmas wedding baby so Christmas wedding baby was my first feature film I was the writer director producer editor on that film and we did really well with that film we premiered it at Urban World Film Festival which is a great huge film festival here in New York City and then we were able to license the film to BET so you may have seen it on BET we did I saw it on BET I was like I know her and then we were also able to license it to Netflix so it was on Netflix for a term and when all of that started happening I thought well I guess that's the end of my festival circuit but the festival started reaching out saying hey we'd be interested in bringing this film here and the wonderful folks at the Honolulu African-American film festival called me and said would you like to bring this on the Honolulu absolutely I would love to bring the film and so we we brought the film and it had a wonderful screening almost filled out audience and so that was my first experience with them in Honolulu who even knew Honolulu had an African-American film festival now everyone knows because of you but there are film festivals if you're a filmmaker out there there are film festivals everywhere and there are film festival specifics to doing the thing that you do if you make films about baskets I bet you there's a basket film festival somewhere this is a great festival and I always choose my festivals by communities where I you know I don't know I like to go places and meet new people and introduce the work because in the same kind of period that's how you build the family of people who want to follow you and grow with you and watch your work and grow with your career I'm always trying to go as far as I can when I'm traveling with a film so Honolulu was like yes and thank you that's amazing that's exactly how we feel we always try to reach out to people who are telling really great stories that matter what one thing we say on this show is that we tell stories or we invite guests and we talk about topics that are real and relevant and you don't get any more real than 21 and done it's something that's happening it's going on right here and right now it happens in every city and state across the globe and you can't get away from it and I think bringing that story to life just made a huge difference for so many people I hope you keep telling that story and I'm curious to know what other stories you plan to tell do you have anything new and exciting that's coming up that you want to talk about there's always I have to say though I have to give a shout out to my dear friend wonderful actor and colleague Stephen Hill who was in Christmas wedding baby who is now on Magnum PI which shoots in Honolulu so it's like a very like very round um a world moment that you know we brought this film here a few years ago and now he's here starring in a major network theory um you know not not that I don't know that I had anything to do with that but it felt very serendipitous to see him you know after bringing the film here to see him working here um so I have another film that I've written for him um and uh I'm working on getting that produced which is a whole other story fighting fighting for that I have another film um called be quick that I'm working on about a woman who's a social activist um who gets sort of disenfranchised from the work that she's doing and has to have a conversation with her ancestors to figure out what to do next um I you know I have a I have a lot of projects that are sort of in development well there's one that I'm sorry I was just going to say there's one that I'm waiting to hear about uh that you haven't mentioned and that is I believe a story about what your grandparents your grandmother fair skinned and had the opportunity to pass is that correct is that your story to tell yeah yeah so yeah I'm working on that script as well um it's about my grandmother who had the opportunity she was a very fair skin woman and it could have passed and chose not to and the life that follows her because of those choices um she she chose a very difficult path to live in her truth and I'm happy to celebrate that in a film yeah I'm excited to hear that I'm excited to hear anything else that you're going to do as well listen and you also have a sci-fi television pilot like you know we just we keep creating we own the wealth of we keep creating creating creating and you know we produce a thing that we can afford to produce and we hope that people will help us finance the things that we can't afford to produce yet um and so you know in the meanwhile uh as long as I have a pencil I can write and I can create stories and develop um that doesn't cost me anything so you know we develop we develop we develop and then we produce and then eventually we get to premiere that's right and we get to welcome you back to Hawaii and enjoy all of your stories thank you so much thank you so much indeed it is a pleasure and I want to mention right before we go that your friend Stephen hill was also here so I think it's definitely full circle that he was here now you're here who else will be here we don't know but we're excited about all of the wonderful creatives that come to Hawaii we do our best to welcome you all with welcome arms to let you know that we appreciate you and you have a following here in Hawaii a ohana that absolutely loves you and accepts you as our own and we hope that you keep telling great stories that we all get to watch and enjoy thank you so much and you can always catch up with me at cultivated films if you google cultivated films that's my website it's my gmail it's my facebook it's my instagram so anytime you want to reach out and see what's going on with us just check out cultivated films by com thank you so much we will look you up on cultivated films dot com where we can always keep up with what's happening new with kiera c jones and if you have not seen 21 and done i recommend highly that you go and you find it wherever it may be found you i'm sure you can find out ideas about where you can find it on the website of cultivated films dot com again kiera thank you so much for being on our show today and for everyone else as always thank you for watching us here at the crossroads where you can catch me every wednesday live at five here on think tech hawaii dot com and on facebook on the think tech hawaii channel and then after the show you can catch us on youtube every week we always want to bring you shows that are real and relevant we look forward to talking to you all again next week aloha