joshua bee alafia
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/
Due to the COVID-19 quarantine, Meditation Mondays at Southside Insight Meditation Circle will be conducted via zoom for the month of May 7-9pm Central https://illinois.zoom.us/j/436018031?pwd=YjN5QjVZQm80SGkvRjZhZXMrOWd5Zz09
and Tao Tuesdays will also be done via zoom 7:30pm to 9:00pm Central Time https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82319471659
Monday, June 1st at 7:00pm Southside Insight Meditation Circle1456 E 70th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60619
TBA