Bx3M a feature film by Judith Escalona

What is your film about?

Maria, Mona and Michael are getting ready for their senior year at James Monroe High School in the Bronx. Graduation is a no-brainer for Maria who is at the top of her class. Mona, her best friend, wants to go to Cooper Union and that spells trouble for the aspiring photographer. Michael, Maria’s boyfriend, is flunking out. No matter, Michael is on a mission yet unknown to him—call it destiny or revenge.

Bx3M traces the lives of three teenage friends growing up in a poor, working class neighborhood. Maria loves Michael more than anything in the world but that love is blind. Her father knows it, Maria will have to see for herself then come to a very hard decision. Mona feels trapped in a lover’s triangle, wavering between Seneca, a Monroe track star, and Sam, a Cooper Union student. Her dilemma is a well-kept secret until her mother finds out Sam is a girl. Michael’s mother was gunned down by drug-pushers when he was three years old and his father never did anything about it. That stings even now, 14 years later. Michael refuses to be like him. When his best friend Pus-head is killed by Duke, the local the local drug dealer, Michael goes after him.

How did you get inspired to do this film?

Bx3M is a full-length feature that was a response to conditions within our community and the way it has been conventionally depicted in film and television. It looks at a segment of the Puerto Rican/Latino community that is not often given screen time. For example, I call the two female leads, Maria and Mona, the Sotomayors of the inner city. I’m referring to our current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The girls come from poor or working class families. They live in the inner city but their parents try their best to guide and shield them from the corrupting influence of the streets--what Puerto Ricans/Latinos have in the past called perdiéndose or perderse en las calles de Nueva York. The Latinas I have created are brainy and artsy with parents who aren’t perfect but who attempt as best they can to guide and protect them.

Where is it going to be the screening?

We are doing a community screening in the Bronx before officially launching. The screening is sponsored by BxArts Factory and The Bronx Filmmakers.

Date and Time of the screening: Friday, September 23, 6PM – 9PM

At: Lincoln Hospital (Auditorium), 234 East 149th Street, Bronx, NY 10451

How can people reserve their FREE tickets?

They can reserve free tickets online at: www.bx3mfilmscreening.eventbrite.com or contact BxArts Factory.

How can people reach out to you?

People can contact me directly at: http://www.bx3mgrowingupfast.com/contact-us.html

View the Trailer for the film at:​ www.bx3mgrowingupfast.com/trailer.html

A short film by the Bronx filmmaker Álvaro Franco will also be screened: Isa: A Brief Portrait is about a queer woman of color who commutes to school while trying to conceal the fact that she is homeless.

DIRECTOR/WRITER BIO

Judith Escalona grew up in the Bronx, where Bx3M takes place, and returned home to make this feature. She previously wrote and directed The Krutch, a surreal narrative about a Puerto Rican psychoanalyst with an identity problem. She is currently working on a new screenplay for her next film.

A segment producer for CUNY-TV, Escalona is also the Founder and Executive Director of Puerto Rico and the American Dream (www. PRdream.com), the 17-year-old, award-winning website on the history, culture and art of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican diaspora. PRdream’s office is located in Spanish Harlem, where the organization has launched several new media initiatives, among them the technology- based art gallery MediaNoche (www.medianoche.us).

Escalona received three Communicator Awards 2012 for her work at CUNY-TV. She won First Prize in the Best Video category of the Ippies Awards 2011. New York State Senator Bill Perkins recognized her in 2010 for her work in the arts. In 2002 Judith Escalona received an Appreciation Award from the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueño at Hunter College and was designated a Distinguished Latina by El Diario/ La Prensa in 2000. She teaches film at The City College of New York.