Howard Alum and Independent Filmmaker Debuts Award-winning ‘Black and Blue’

If you begin with the letter “z” and work your way to the letter “a”, you are still reciting the alphabet. Black and Blue the movie mirrors this unique vantage point, depicting a story felt by the average late 1960s American home. Being one in a million is typically a desire of many but this short drama shows what happens when one young man’s stroke of fate affects his entire family.

Without delay, the protagonist invites you into her realm, and you too feel the defeated excitement of a would-be college scholar restricted by the harsh realities of life. With a brother being drafted into service during the Vietnam War, she must successfully own her new role as the family’s breadwinner. Diana faces a new set of challenges already living in a society where she is at the bottom of the food chain. Black and Blue the movie shows what happens when a young black man is essentially given another pair of eyes in exchange for his mouth.

“The Draft Lottery took away choice and I never saw that depicted in a film ─ I felt charged to tell it,” says film director Ciara Allen.

Actress Morgan Breon plays the main character of this short drama filmed on Allen’s family blueberry farm. Diana’s small town will soon know the oppressive effects of war and she will begin learning even what her almost-historically black college or university (HBCU) education could not teach. The drama magnifies the unsung heroes of the war that never saw a day of army training or combat ─ those loved ones who kept households and communities surviving.  Not only does this short drama leave you wanting more, it may leave you sweaty, craving an icy glass of lemonade, with blueberries.

Black and Blue the movie premiered July at the 2015 BlackStar Film Festival and won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Short Drama. Award-winning Independent Filmmaker Ciara “Cc” Allen is a recent graduate of the Howard University John H. Johnson School of Communications. Again, she packages her distinctive and clever wit into a plot with purpose. Aside from her stellar cinematography skills,  one thing Allen makes very clear is her faith and commitment to her craft, producing a completely family-funded product. Within months, Allen raised more than $18,000 on crowd-funding website, Kickstarter. It can be confidently said that Allen will soon be raising more than funds with her deliberate, uncensored plots.

Official selection for Black and Blue includes the HollyShorts Film Festival and the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival. Cc Allen is currently in post-production for her next film, A-Sex Party. For more information visit blackandbluemovie.com and facebook.com/blackandbluefilm2014.