For Ahkeem

For Ahkeem follows the life of Daje Shelton, a seventeen-year-old black girl living in North St. Louis. After being expelled from her public school, Daje is given one final chance to graduate by attending an alternative program at the Innovative Concept Academy. Over the course of two years, we watch as Daje attempts to adjust to her much stricter new school while also balancing a tumultuous relationship with her mother and an intense first love. Coloring Daje’s maturation into adulthood is the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in nearby Ferguson, MO and the resulting protests. In this intimate and powerful documentary from filmmakers Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, the personal echoes the political as Daje confronts herself and her community, all the while grappling with what it means to grow up black in America.

Q&A filmmakers Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest

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