Our Projects
34 Days: The Fight for Dyett
A feature length documentary
Media Sutra is gearing up to produce our third feature-length documentary about the Fight for Dyett Hunger Strike in Bronzeville, Chicago.
34 Days: The Fight for Dyett is an exploration of the circumstances that led a community to put their lives on the line, build power, fight, and win. This is the first time we’re activating transformative storytelling and resource mobilization to support a community we’re deeply committed to as they tell their story to self-determine and thrive.
In the face of the largest simultaneous public school closure in the country, a resilient Black community on Chicago's South Side embarks on a courageous hunger strike, defying all odds to save their high school. As they confront relentless hunger, unprecedented health crises, and a deeply entrenched system of racial oppression, their fight becomes a symbol of hope and garners widespread support. 34 Days: Fight For Dyett chronicles their struggle, showcasing the indomitable spirit that empowers them to rise from the ashes of America's crippling challenges and emerge triumphant, like a phoenix, in reclaiming their generational legacy.
34 Days: The Fight for Dyett is currently in the Production phase, and will be ongoing through Spring of 2024. Our team is integrating a resource mobilization strategy to raise $500K in support of BIPOC creatives leading this project. Additionally, we are raising another $500K to be invested into the Bronzeville community to actualize their bold visions. Core to our process is trust-building and being in “right relationship” with the community we are centering in our storytelling and production. We are grateful to be in partnership with the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization and Journey for Justice, and to receive initial seed support from the Partnership for the Future of Learning.
Questions? Please contact: nina(at)mediasutra(dot)net and manauvaskar(at)mediasutra(dot)net.
Jahajees Rising
Jahajees Rising is an Intersectional Feminist TV Series written by Taij Kumarie Moteelall and produced in partnership with Jahajee Sisters, the only Indo-Caribbean gender justice organization, Media Sutra Inc and Enchanted Blue Media. This episodic series for television will serve as a popular education and organizing tool to shift culture and narratives and bend the arc towards gender justice.
What is this TV Series about?
“An extra spicy group of Indo-Caribbean artists and activists band together after the brutal stabbing of Sevita Singh on New Year’s eve to build a cross-class, LGBTQ+ inclusive movement that address gender based violence, while also navigating generational trauma, family secrets, and love triangles.”
In the series, protagonist Sevita, survives an act of gender-based violence and joins a budding Indo-Caribbean gender justice movement. Jahajees Rising challenges the narratives that normalize intimate partner violence while igniting new cultural norms, tells the story of indentured laborers who were brought from South Asia to the Caribbean from 1838-1917, and seeks to make community organizing rooted in transformative justice more accessible to the mainstream.
We understand that art and stories play a distinct role in the catalytic and imaginative work needed by liberation struggles. While they don’t replace the need for direct services and grassroots organizing, they compliment social movements in powerful ways. Rooted in the lineage of Afro-Futurism, Jahajees Rising– both the process and the product– rallies our community together to reflect on root causes and imaginatively assert the futures we most desire.