Ithaca College

FLEFF is honored to welcome IC alums Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest back to campus with their new feature-length film For Ahkeem.

For Akheem (Jeremy S. Levine, Landon Van Soest, 2017; 90 miin.)  After a school fight lands 17-year old Daje Shelton in a court-supervised alternative high school, she's determined to turn things around and make a better future for herself in her rough St. Louis neighborhood.

But focusing on school is tough as she loses multiple friends to gun violence, falls in love for the first time, and becomes pregnant with a boy, Ahkeem, just as Ferguson erupts a few miles down the road.

Through Daje's intimate coming-of-age story, For Ahkeem illuminates challenges that many Black teenagers face in America today, and witnesses the strength, resilience, and determination it takes to survive.

Screening at Cinemapolis on Thursday April 12, 7 p.m. with filmmakers Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest, moderated by Eric  Acree, Africana Library, Cornell University

Tickets available at Cinemapolis. Use your FLEFF pass!

On campus events with Levine and Van Soest:

Tuesday April 10 2:35 Park 281
Behind the scenes on For Ahkeem workshop

Tuesday April 10 6:50 Park 285
International Issues in Documentary Workshop
Moderated by Dr. Kati Lustyik

Wed April 11 Noon-2 Park 223
Race-ing Documentary Roundtable
with Reece Auguiste (Black Audio Film Collective); Gossa Tsegaye (filmmaker and TVR prof), Levine; and Van Soest, moderated by Patricia Zimmermann, FLEFF

Thurs April 12 2:35 Park 281
The Business of Documentary Workshop
Moderated by John Scott, Documentary Studies and Production

BIOS 

Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest are an Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaking team whose work explores social commentary through rich characters and cinematic stories.

Good Fortune, their feature documentary about how efforts to aid Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to serve, was broadcast to millions of viewers in prime time on the PBS series POV. Good Fortune received a National Emmy Award in addition to awards for international reporting and promoting social justice from the Overseas Press Club, Fledgling Fund, and Witness.

Their previous documentary Walking the Line, about vigilantes on the U.S.-Mexico border, was broadcast nationally in five countries and recognized with awards for production, reporting, and preserving human rights.

In 2014, Levine directed/co-produced “Am I Next,” a short film about a teenager navigating the protests on the streets of Ferguson for Time. The short was also featured on Upworthy and Dazed Magazine and selected as a Vimeo Staff pick, with over 500K combined views.

Van Soest is also currently directing Light Darkness Light, a feature documentary that tracks the life-altering experience of a man who receives a bionic eye and learns to see again after thirty years of blindness.

Landon and Jeremy co-founded Transient Pictures, a full service production company that produces original content for organizations like Facebook, Unicef, Ben & Jerry’s, Toyota, and Lincoln Center. The team also co-founded the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, a tight-knit community of professional filmmakers in Brooklyn, NY who are dedicated to innovative approaches to filmmaking.  

Cosponsored with the Roy H. Park School of Communications

FLEFF: A DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT