a film about hope, redemption, and the struggle to beat the odds

Curtis Caesar John

Director, Writer & Producer

              

Beginning his career on the production staff of various narrative and news projects, Curtis quickly found the best way to produce the types of media he was really passionate about - telling the stories of the under/misrepresented - was to be the literal creative force behind them…and in this he set aside pursuing set work and focused on becoming a screenwriter & producer.

To keep paying the rent he had to accept a non-glamorous technical job, putting him face-to-face with murderers, rapists, robbers and their victims on a daily basis out to police precincts, often in the dead of night, to record video confessions from ‘defendants’ who had either true malice in their hearts or committed crimes of passion.  Essentially, he ended up identifying more with the pain on both sides of the crime and wanting to make stories using those true feelings of guilt, betrayal, loneliness, and hopelessness than the obvious side of depicting heavy crime dramas (though that depravity has been useful as well). 

In that time he had written four feature and three short scripts, as well as multiple treatments and teleplay spec scripts, the range of which include drama, comedy, mystery and horror, and been lauded for his originality and compassion persuaded him to never put my talent aside when others of my generation were making tons more money in other careers.

Four years ago Curtis was contacted by poet Mecca Woods to be the screenwriter for her loosely based life story CONCRETE PEARL (aka ZEMIRA).  Originally intent on selling the screenplay, it became his personal passion that he couldn’t let fall into ‘strange’ hands, and finally moved fully into the director’s chair for the film and hasn’t looked back since. He recently directed a short film version of the movie entitled A Little Bit of More, while working hard to secure financing for Concrete Pearl.  You can reach him at curtis@zemirathefilm.com.



           Mecca Woods                

                   Writer & Producer                  

Born and raised in the South Bronx section of New York City, Mecca Woods has been writing from a very young age.  Honing her craft after the likes of the literary greats who precede her, Mecca would go on to win the Audre Lorde Prize in Poetry and secure a publishing internship with Simon & Schuster while pursuing a creative writing major at Hunter College.

Since completing school, Mecca spends her  time working in the nonprofit sector by day and bringing her creative projects into fruition by night (and weekends too!). Mecca has been a featured writer in both the Kettle of Fish and Sunday Salon reading series in New York City, and has appeared most recently at the Bowery Poetry Club and Brooklyn Exposure. She is also a film critic for SocietyHAE.com. CONCRETE PEARL is her first feature film project. You can reach her at  mecca@zemirathefilm.com.