How did generations of Black women and girls across America, including the film's director, find themselves fighting for joy and healing? LITTLE SALLIE WALKER, an intimate documentary, explores how their precious worlds of play collide with a unique set of traumas and struggles from both the past and present.
SYNOPSIS
LITTLE SALLIE WALKER recounts the lyrical and fantastical legacy of Black girls at play, which was once a place of power and refuge for Black women like the film's director. Born in Washington DC, Marta Effinger-Crichlow gets her first taste of freedom in childhood playing circle games, dress up, and double dutch in the late 70s and early 80s. From North to South and East to West, Marta meets Black girls and women who reveal that their shared experiences go far beyond the games they have all played and expose their traumas and socioeconomic struggles.
Through rare archival footage, vibrant home movies, and unique Super-8 recreations artfully woven with intimate vérité and tender testimonials from Alabama, the District of Columbia, southern California, Washington state, and New York, LITTLE SALLIE WALKER tells how Black women and girls use play in their fight for joy and healing.
Director Statement
I know that the death of my grandmother, born in 1913, and the birth of my daughter, who is still serious about play, first led me to make LITTLE SALLIE WALKER. My daughter's version of play in the 21st century excited me, and I want her to treasure it well after childhood. I have also longed to understand my grandmother, mother, aunts, and the community of Black women who nurtured me but whose lives centered around giving so much of themselves inside and outside their homes. And understanding them still mattered to me when they began passing away throughout the process of filming. I first set out to use play to document the cultural and creative elements of Black girls' play worlds – those of us born after and before segregation and those of us coming of age in urban, rural, and coastal communities. Through the film's participants from Alabama, New York, California, and Washington State participants, I realized that play exposes parts of our other shared experiences. As a mother, daughter, and Black woman in America, I must continue to be brave enough to include my personal experiences in the film.
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Marta Effinger-Crichlow
Marta Effinger-Crichlow (Director/Producer/Writer) is a filmmaker whose interdisciplinary projects in film, theater, and literature highlight her mission to fuse social issues, culture, and history. Her first produced collage, THE EVOLUTION OF JAZZ, was commissioned for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her produced projects include the multi-media collage THE KITCHEN IS CLOSED STARTIN' SUNDAY. Marta, who holds an Interdisciplinary Ph.D from Northwestern University, has worked as a freelance dramaturg for 20+ years on script development, archival research and curation, and educational outreach for theater productions throughout the U.S. She worked as a dramaturg for the bi-coastal film adaptation of BLACK TERROR (written by Richard Wesley and dir. by Richard Lawson). Along with her work-in-progress documentary LITTLE SALLIE WALKER, Marta's body of work centers the lives of Black women. She has interviewed Black female migrants from World War II's Kaiser shipyards. She is also the author of Staging Migrations toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones, published by the University Press of Colorado. She was an advisor on the documentary CHOCOLATE MILK (dir. by Elizabeth Gray Bayne). For LITTLE SALLIE WALKER, Marta has received support from Women Make Movies, WIF x Sundance, Athena Works-in-Progress Program, BPM 360+ Incubator Fellowship, DOC NYC x Video Consortium Incubator, IFP/JustFilms Ford Foundation Fellowship, DOC NYC OINY, Perspective Fund, and Working Films Impact Kickstart.
Elizabeth Gray Bayne (Co-Producer) is the founder of graybayne film/media, a health and social issue-based production company, where she produces films, PSAs and digital content for universities, nonprofits and government agencies, as well as teaches community-based storytelling and documentary filmmaking to high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is a recipient of generous grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Glassbreaker Films, and the Center for Cultural Innovation.
An award-winning filmmaker, her work centers on the use of storytelling and behavioral psychology to motivate audiences to change behavior and adapt new habits for improved health outcomes. Elizabeth has a Masters in Public Health from Yale University and a Masters of Fine Art from the ArtCenter College of Design. She has produced documentary and PSA content for MIT, USC, the LA County Department of Public Health, and her work has appeared on ABC, the Smithsonian Channel and Magic Johnson's Aspire TV Network.
Elizabeth's short documentary "Continuing A Legacy" about black cowgirl and junior rodeo competitor London Gladney earned Best Documentary Short at the BronzeLens and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festivals in 2021. She recently completed her first feature documentary "Chocolate Milk" about birth and breastfeeding gaps for Black mothers in the U.S. had its West Coast premiere in 2024 at the Pan African Film Festival.
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Women Make Movies (WMM), Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State and accepts charitable donations on behalf of this project. Your donation will be spent by the filmmaker(s) toward the production and completion of this media project. No services or goods are provided by Women Make Movies, the filmmaker(s) or anyone else associated with this project in exchange for your charitable donation.
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