why some people be mad at me sometimes is a single channel experimental film that cites the mother of Dancehall Sister Nancy singing her song bam bam in dialogue with Maya Angelou’s performance of the poem The Mask. The video is a meditation on the misappropriation of Blackness within music, and how often Black folks are told to not criticize but to smile and be grateful. All while tracing the filmmakers' relationship to Dancehall and Afro Caribbean culture through archival footage of themselves as a young person dancing at Folklorama. Folklorama has the intention to be a space for sharing diverse cultures but oftentimes a space of cultural consumption that erases the colonial history of the countries that are on display. 

why some people be mad at me sometimes has screened at the New York African Film Festival, Winnipeg Underground Film Festival, A Long Time Comin: A Black Queer Prairie Film (Winnipeg), Ẅ XOOL Film Festival (Paris) aCinema (Milwaukee) and Fluxus Experimental Film Festival (Hamilton) Mighty Niagara Falls Film Fest (Niagara Falls) and MIX NYC.

2024

experimental

Run time: 3 minutes

The film is distributed by Vtape. Please contact Wanda VanderStoop, Director of Distribution: distribution@vtape.org for inquiries about the film