joshua bee alafia
About joshua
Filmmaker
joshua bee alafia started making films in high school and graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a BA in Film in 1995. Since then he has been freelancing as a Cinematographer and Editor in World Cinema and writing and directing his own feature films. His cinematographer credits in documentaries include; Every Day Art in Cuba, We Just Tellin’ Stories: Rodessa Jones’ Medea Project, Making Tortillas with the Mayans, Besouro Preto, Behind the Green Line, the Road to Sao Tome, the Cuban Hip Hop All Stars, Dub Poet: Oku Onuora, Maybe Dreams Can Come True and Fashioning Peace in Kenya and Havana Habibi,. His editor credits include the documentaries Juneteenth Community, Maybe Dreams Can Come True, Louisiana Cane, and the Sundance Jury Award Winning Wet Dreams and False Images. He has shot music videos for Luciano, Bikram Singh, King David, 77 Klash and Poets; Ainsley Burrows and Queen Godis. His film credits as writer/ director include the Anti Vigilante, Bold As Love, Se Safando, The Seed, Let’s Stay Together(the film, not the series) and the award winning Cubamor. He is a founder and CEO of www.rootsflix.com; Art in the Spirit of Liberation, films devoted to expanding consciousness. joshua bee alafia resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Meditator
joshua bee alafia’s meditation practice began in 1989 when his mother gave him a mantra to work with. This sparked a rich journey into different styles from the Hawaiian Shamanic, Hindu, Sufi, Dzogchen, Taoist, and Vipassana traditions. Wanting to bring Vipassana practice to the youth, he began teaching mindfulness practice to incarcerated, court involved and system vulnerable youth through the Lineage Project in 2010. He is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He has taught at New York Insight Meditation Center, MNDFL, Brooklyn Zen Center, and cofounded Southside Liberation Center in Chicago and Kigali Liberation center in Rwanda. He’s the CEO of Liberation Center Worldwide, a non-profit organization that builds meditation and wellness centers internationally.
Writer
With a background in writing for film, joshua bee alafia is currently writing a book about no-budget filmmaking called "Chasing The Sun: No-budget Filmmaking in Cuba, Brasil, Ethiopia and Brooklyn" He is also a contributor to the book on meditation in urban society, called "Still, In The City," available at your local book store and featured in Salon: Magazine https://www.salon.com/2018/09/03/the-subway-is-a-moving-temple-underground-meditation-on-the-a-train/
Updates
Programs:
Inner Power: Mindfulness and Qigong Program
Using meditation and Qigong creates transformation in students by activating the executive function of the brain through concentration and release of trauma through movement. Working in schools, recovery centers and prisons, I’ve watched a culture shift from one of reactivity, violence and trauma to one of mutual respect, positive mentality and harmony over time. Cultivating presence of awareness through mindful sharing, meditation, and mindful movement in the form of Qigong works as preemptive support for students’ mental and physical wellbeing. The class has a direct impact that will:
- Cultivate internal tools for students ability to decreasing reactivity
- Develop communication skills
- Provide tools to relieve stress and anxiety
- Promote general mental and physical wellness
Alafia currently teaches Inner Power with the Good Seed, helping folks come out of shelterlessness, and Jail Guitar Doors, supporting folks with healing and job skills after incarceration in Los Angeles.
Please reach out if you would like more information!
Inner Power at Uplift High School, Chicago, IL.
Inner Power at Flushing Suspension School, Queens, NY
screenings
TBA
Let's Stay Together
2012 103 minutes
On the premonition that a new Rev. Al Green album could save families, Parker embarks on a mission to better understand the role of black men and their families. Although it sounds crazy and his friends think he has lost his mind, Parker decides to make a documentary that will show a palette of relationships between black men and the family unit, explaining why the problem exists. In the film within the film we meet his friend Freddy who struggles with his mixed-race identity and becomes determined to deliver his Filipina girlfriend from her shame of being black” confusion. Couple Noah and Carmen want to be rock stars, but when Carmen becomes pregnant, she forces Noah to confront the fact that he’s never met his father. Tariq’s ex-wife brings their 8-year-old girl to stay with him while she pursues her career, much to the dismay of Tariq’s blues singer girlfriend Ishara. Even Parker finds himself in a situation that may result in his absence, when his ex-girlfriend Nzinga realizes she is pregnant and wants to have the baby alone because of his Al Green obsession. Will Al Green’s music prove to enchant, awaken and inspire the streets of Brooklyn and the world?
Cubamor
2002 131 minutes
Lazaro and Zoe are two Americans who find love and magic in havana. A Festival Award Winning film, Cubamor takes us deep into the world of African Mysticism, hustlers and the cuban underground.
Bold As Love
2005 33 minutes
Imbube (Ezra Mabengeza) and Thandeka (Thandiwe Maphumulo) are two South Africans living in New York. Though they grew up together, they haven’t seen each other in over ten years. Imbube lives by his Saxaphone, day to day, check to check and fix to fix with his heroin addiction. Thandeka has been working for six months as an Au Pair for Darnell (Roger Guenveur Smith) and Irene (Magaly Colimon) caring for their one year old son Dax. The two reunite as if to remind each other of something lost in the New York hustle; we have to be as Bold as Love.
The Seed
2009 101 minutes
Fikir, a ten year old street urchin, wakes up one morning after dreaming of an Angel, and finds an orange outside his make shift dwelling. After a bully steals his shoeshine rig, he is consoled by some other homeless youth and joins them in selling tissues. He interacts with an Angel who shows him his true nature, and becomes the prophet of the Golden Age. He reaches out to other young parents who are conceiving children who are destined to be prophets, sages and leaders. Among the conceiving parents are a prostitute who doesn't know the father of he child, a couple from different social classes who elope, a model who must choose between her career and motherhood, and a social worker who works with HIV positive orphans who conceivs with a taxivan conductor/poet who wants to free the lions at the zoo.