1st project is "Killing In Thy Name" documentary for Rage Against The Machine, directed by The Ummah Chroma
Directors Terence Nance, Jenn Nkiru, and Bradford Young along with producers Mishka Brown and Nanette Nelms have launched Ummah Chroma Creative Partners (UCCP), an independent, artist-led production company.
Ummah Chroma Creative Partners’ intention is to create a unique space of fostering to create, elevate and preserve authentic Black narratives and perspectives in all media, including advertising, television, cinema and art.
“Our purpose in forming an independent company is to retain the freedom to create projects and processes with collective values and to maintain agency in telling our own stories,” said the founders in a mission statement.
Launched in partnership with Serial Pictures, Ummah Chroma Creative Partners will represent their own directors’ collective The Ummah Chroma, in addition to other artists and filmmakers for branded entertainment, commercials and music videos.
Serial Pictures’ founder Violaine Etienne will act as an executive producer alongside the UCCP’s founding partners. Each member of The Ummah Chroma will continue pursuing individual directing projects through their respective commercial representation: Young is represented by Serial Pictures; Nance is repped by Anonymous Content, and Nkiru by Iconoclast.
Director Young was nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar in 2017 for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. He has lensed notable work in film and TV, including Ava DuVernay’s Selma and When They See Us, and Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. Young has successfully diversified into directing and joined Serial’s roster as a solo helmer last year. Nance’s filmography includes his first feature, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Gotham Award. Nance’s TV series Random Acts of Flyness debuted on HBO in 2018 and went on to win a Peabody Award. Nance has been active making music, scoring his own films and TV series, and working with groundbreaking musicians in the process. His additional film work includes Swimming in Your Skin Again and Univitillen. And Nkiru is an accomplished artist and filmmaker. Her directorial credits include Beyoncรฉ’s “Brown Skin Girl,” which last month was one of five entries to earn Grand Prix distinction at the Ciclope Festival. Nkiru’s first film En Vogue debuted to critical acclaim. And her Rebirth Is Necessary won the Canal+ award at the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival, best documentary at the London Independent Film Festival, and the Voice of a Woman award at Cannes.
Killing In Thy Name
The first project to be released by UCCP is the powerful documentary film Killing In Thy Name in collaboration with Rage Against the Machine and directed by The Ummah Chroma. The film is framed around the band’s iconic protest anthem “Killing in the Name”, and the directors state their “aim is for the piece to be a fire escape from the fiction known as whiteness and a spring for discovery.”
“We are honored to partner with Ummah Chroma Creative Partners in supporting their vision and commitment as they create a communal creative space and incubator for artists and filmmakers in Black cinema and art,” said Serial Pictures founding partner Etienne. “Our industry has lacked inclusivity in not only what stories are being told, but how they’re told and by whom. Working with these powerful storytellers, we are looking forward to reshaping that approach with an open-ended, equitable collaborative process.”
Previous credits for The Ummah Chroma, which was originally conceived in its first iteration by Young, Nance, Nkiru, editor Marc Thomas, and musical artist and producer Kamasi Washington, include the short film As Told To G/D Thyself, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads โ essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More