Park Pictures to Release AG Rojas’ ‘Godchild’ Online (Exclusive)

by Etan Vlessing

Courtesy of Park Pictures
‘Godchild’

The homage to American jazz greats initially ran as a Smithsonian Institute traveling exhibit and now heads to a virtual run amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

AG Rojas‘ Godchild, a short film about Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, is set for a digital release via Park Pictures after the Smithsonian Institute’s Men of Change exhibition was disrupted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Park Pictures will make the film available starting June 4 as an exclusive one-month run on Rojas’ website before the Smithsonian Institute traveling exhibit, which featured Godchild, can resume. “All in all, you are invited to sit and meditate with the imagery and with the music. It was created in collaboration with hundreds of people around North and South America, all contributing just as much as myself,” said Rojas in a statement.

He helmed Godchild with directorial contribution from Sonia Hernandez. The film was co-written by Darol Olu Kae. Besides the jazz greats featured in Godchild, the Smithsonian’s Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth traveling exhibit tells the stories of other American trailblazers such as Muhammad Ali, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, W.E.B Du Bois and Kendrick Lamar.

“I was looking to fold space and time, to create imaginary dialogues between Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and the present. We traveled to places of great cultural significance, including John and Alice Coltrane’s home in Dix Hills, where John wrote ‘A Love Supreme.’ And Grace Cathedral, where Duke Ellington performed his Concert of Sacred Music,” Rojas said of the film itself.

Led by Jackie Kelman Bisbee and director-cinematographer Lance Acord, Park Pictures as a commercial and indie movie producer premiered four films at Sundance, including U.S. Dramatic Competition entrant Farewell Amor and the Richard Jenkins-led comedy The Last Shift.

Park Pictures won the 2019 Cannes Lions Palme d’Or, awarded to the top production company of the year, and the Titanium Lion for the Colin Kaepernick-narrated Nike spot “Dream Crazy.”

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