Award-winning producer Rolla Selback has announced the launch of a new Kickstarter campaign to help fund her newest collaborative effort, “Last Black Man in San Francisco.” The self-described feature-length narrative film, featuring Jimmie Fails and Prentice Sanders and directed by Jimmie’s real-life boyhood friend Joe Talbot, is the story of one third-generation San Franciscan’s dreams of buying back his childhood home in the Fillmore. “This film isn’t just about tough economic times and changing political landscapes in San Francisco. It’s a story about two inseparable misfits who are searching for home in a city they can no longer call their own,” states Selback on the Kickstarter campaign Web site.
The story grew out of Fails’ family’s experience: His grandfather, like many African Americans in San Francisco, arrived during the World War II years, worked a well-paying job, bought a home. But by the early 1990s, there was no generational wealth transferred down to Jimmie Fails’ generation from many years of hard work and fiscal responsibility. Fails’ dream is to buy back the Victorian home his grandfather built in the heart of San Francisco. Now living in the city’s last, dwindling black neighborhood with his oddball best friend, Prentice, they search for belonging in the rapidly changing city that seems to have left them behind.
The Fails family story is similar to that of thousands of black San Franciscans during the past 20 years, and it is coming together at a time of heightened awareness among some city officials, culture-watchers and academics about the shrinking black population here. The black population has declined by more than 35 percent in San Francisco between 1990 and 2010 and today represents about 6 percent of the city’s total population of more than 805,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Last Black Man in San Francisco” is a finalist for both the Sundance Producing Lab, as well as the prestigious San Francisco Film Society grant. Their Kickstarter campaign launched April 26 and will run through June 3. It has currently raised over $10,000 dollars in two days and hopes to reach its goal of $50,000. Depending on one’s contribution, gifts range from a ‘Where’s Jimmie’ tee (modeled after the ‘Where’s Waldo’ campaign), movie posters, a walk-on part all the way up to the cast coming to your home for a private screening.
Selbak is currently active with the Tello Films hit web series “Kiss Her, I’m Famous.” For more information on Rolla Selback, you can visit her Web site here.
