PRIVILEGE UNHINGED

Viewings of Privilege Unhinged are granted upon request. Please contact us for more details.

ABOUT THE FILM

Meet SHANI—a young black woman that by all means plays it safe at work. It's paying off with winning favor from her colleagues except for Brad--the crowned drinking buddy of the office.   

There's a clear divide between the way black employees are treated vs white employees. Shani is wrestling with how she should deal with these blatant disparities on one especially tense "Black Friday". Will she finally challenge the way her boss cherry picks job related offenses, or keep quiet and stay under the radar?

This film explores the sad reality of being black not only in corporate America, but in American society. Shani's struggles with speaking up, being heard and challenging unearned favoritism are highlighted in "Privilege Unhinged".

"PRIVILEGE UNHINGED" WAS A FINALIST IN THE BASSETT HOUSE SHORT FILM COMPETITION!

“Privilege Unhinged was a finalist in the Bassett House #Screendatnight #screendatnight Short Film Competition!!!

Bassett House is founded by HBO's Insecure costar Jean Elie—he played Issa Rae’s brother on the iconic television series.

Voting for the contest ended on November 7th. While we didn’t win, the “Privilege Unhinged” team was grateful for the opportunity! Congratulations to everyone involved in this amazing opportunity!

FESTIVAL & screening SUBMISSIONS!

“PRIVILEGE UNHINGED” IS AVAILABLE ON SHORTS TV!

CHARACTER BIOS

SHANI is a cute, young, black professional that's poised and put together. She's the model employee for other blacks in the office that want to excel. Shani feels tremendous pressure to stand up for all of them, but she's on the fence about playing martyr after seeing another black person suffer greatly in the name of fairness. 

BRAD is unemployable and he knows it. He's spoiled, privileged and gets away with bad behavior. He's coasted for a while, but Shani's talent is putting pressure on him to do more than be a full time bro. 

EMILY secretly looks up to Shani and secretly wonders how Shani and the black employees are eating up the obvious favoritism going on in the office. She won't say anything though. If she does, she knows she won't be talented enough to keep her job. 

CANDACE has seen it all. She's seen versions of Shani, Brad and Emily over the years in the office. Candace wants to see a change, but realizes that expecting anything other than the dysfunctional norm is probably pointless.  

JULIE has to answer to people that are adamant about racial quotas among the staff, but her best performing employees are not white. In order to keep her productivity high, Julie has to balance her staffing needs and the desires of the managing board. She wishes she could tell Shani this information but a lawsuit would soon follow. 

MARCUS can't catch a break. He's willing to play nice and tolerate the lazy employees but he doesn't want them on his team. He feels set up, angry and realizes he is in a lose-lose scenario if he wants to get ahead at Trendy Magazine.

SCREENING PHOTOS!

ON SET PHOTOS!

THE CAST

NATALIE JACOBS

Natalie Jacobs is a Virginia native who trained at the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC.  Her TV credits include The Mind of a Murderer and Grave Secrets.  She also played Monica Lee in Season 1 and 2 of Tough Love on Black & Sexy TV. Her NYC theatre credits include Antony and Cleopatra (Cleopatra), Black Footnotes (Evelyn Boyd Granville), Birthday Girl (Mel) and Six Triple Eight (Sammy).  She has been featured in national training videos for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Phoenix House. For additional information, visit www.NatalieDJacobs.com.

MARISA VITALI

Marisa Vitali is a Brooklyn based actress and producer. She found acting at an early age, and after graduating from NYU Tisch she pursued a professional acting career. Soon, she became disillusioned with acting and was attracted to the instant gratification of clubs and drugs. Marisa found herself in a treatment facility at 25 years old for heroin addiction.

Marisa says acting saved her life, knowing she had other options besides a life of addiction. In treatment, she met Lawrence Sacharow (Broadway Director “Three Tall Women”) who was on staff and casting his Off-Broadway play THE CONCEPT, which chronicles addicts in treatment. Marisa was cast in his show and Lawrence became a mentor, encouraging Marisa to pursue acting fulltime. She joined Michael Howard’s Master Class and found a channel for the guilt, shame and resentments that she carried into recovery. Marisa credits working on THE CONCEPT and honing her acting craft as the two things that kept her clean.

Since then, Marisa has been seen in films on the festival circuit, television shows aired on HBO, ABC and ID Discovery, and in NYC theater. She has been in numerous commercials and is the voice of many audiobooks for audible.com. She was a lead in the Official Cannes Film Selection "YOU & I," directed by Christopher Scott, opposite Blake Gibbons.

Marisa produced, wrote and acted in the short film Grace, based on her struggle with heroin addiction, and is in the final stages of preparations for a festival run. She is in development on a feature film loosely based on the short film. Marisa is a member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA; and is on the programming committee at NYWIFT (NY Women in Film and TV).  Find out more about Marissa at www.marisavitali.com.

JOHN CHARLES NAGY

John Charles Nagy is an actor, writer and very recently, director. In addition to appearing in various multimedia projects recently, John founded the sketch comedy group, Mom Picks Us Up with his friends and colleagues at LightSwitch Entertainment; the first sketch, "Uptight Date Night", will premiere on streaming sites later this month! Other recent credits include the Lilly Singh sketch; "How to Be a Good Wing Woman, ft/ Priyanka Chopra", "5tages of Realizing You're in a Love Triangle" (Elite Daily), and L'Highm (Lightswitch Entertainment), a short comedic film currently making festival rounds. When the red lights go off, John loves to be at home cooking and watching movies and shows with his fiancee Megan, and their mini Dachshund, Ruby. Find out more about Charles at www.johncharlesnagy.com

THE CREW

WRITER.DIRECTOR.EXECUTIVE PRODUCER.

Lande Yoosuf is a television industry professional with several years of experience casting at numerous networks including MTV, NBC, WEtv, truTV and Bravo to name a few. Lande Yoosuf oversees all aspects of casting and production at One Scribe Media (www.onescribemedia.com) with a strong emphasis on story composition. Her responsibilities help to ensure that her client's creative goals, vision and needs are met maintaining One Scribe Media's expressed brand. Lande is currently writing several screenplays covering themes of media influence, sociology, gender and race relations, pop culture, women's empowerment and self-image. Lande graduated from Brooklyn College with a B.A. in Television and minor in marketing.

PRODUCER

Reggie Williams is a screenwriter/director based out of Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Emerson College with a degree in writing for film and TV, he wrote for Comedy Central and directed a music video for Frank Ocean that was featured on Vibe.com. Reggie is currently developing and writing various films, the most current being an introspective feature length documentary about his own black identity which features writer Micheal Denzel Smith, comedian Nore Davis, amongst others.

PRODUCER

Martha Frances Williams is a NYC based producer and creative entrepreneur. After graduating from The Savannah College of Art and Design she moved to NYC to intern for Above The Title Entertainment. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, NYWIFT, several independent organizations geared towards the creation of new work, and an event curator for Her Agenda. When she is not producing for film, theatre, live events, and the web, Martha is live tweeting events and blogging. Her focus is on the support of female creative entrepreneurs and developing new and engaging stories that explore universal vulnerabilities. You can follow her on Instagram/ Twitter @MarthaFrancesWilliams

PRODUCER

Coming from Chicago, IL Crystal Joy has been studying acting for the past five years. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism at Loyola University Chicago, but shortly after graduating she moved to New York to pursue acting and screenwriting.

This will be Crystal's second time producing--the first being a short film she wrote and starred in called 'Crumble'. Her first play was the Off Broadway production, ‘The Cherry Orchard’ followed by ‘Dead End’ and a showcase at the Producers Club. She just wrapped her first episodic guest spot on the TV mini-series, ‘Shadow of Doubt' and is set to play in the second run of the Off-Broadway play '12 Angry People'. Crystal is excited to be apart of the Privilege Unhinged team, especially since she is working in the company of other talented, ambitious women. On her free time she enjoys eating, collecting vinyls and exploring NYC.

LAUREN SOWA

Lauren Sowa is thrilled to join the cast of PRIVILEGE UNHINGED. Lauren is a big-time animal lover, and has yet to meet a pretzel she doesn't like. When not shooting, you can find her on stage, reading a good book, catching up on old films, doing yoga, and watching soccer. Recent Film Credits: THE RAINBOW EXPERIMENT, WAY, 42 SECONDS OF HAPPINESS (Winner: Best Ensemble Cast, HIFF ’16; Indie Spirit Award, PIFF ’16; Best Feature Film, WTFF ’16). Training: NYU Tisch Drama. For more info and updates, check out www.laurensowa.com!

ALANA RAQUEL BOWERS

Alana Raquel Bowers is graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Drama and a double minor in Sociology and Africana Studies. Her training has gotten her featured in a video for Gavin DeGraw's "She Sets the City On Fire", "Step Up 2", "PRÆY" (Best Youth Film at Blackstar Film Festival), and FringeNYC's "Girls Will Be Girls" by Jolie London Glickman.

Alana toured with her dance company in the International Association for Blacks in Dance (IABD) Conference. She also workshopped and performed "Working" The Musical in Guilford, England at the Nomad Theater under the direction of Donald Hicken, Becky Mossing, and Carli Jones.

Challenging her trilingual talents (French and Spanish),  she studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, and co-directed and shot an original documentary entitled "Ritmos Del Alma Española". She also studied at the International Theatre Workshop (ITW) in Amsterdam, Netherlands where she was intensely trained in Shakespeare, Commedia Dell'Arte, Brecht, and Post-Modern Dance.

REGGIE WILLIAMS

Reggie Williams is a Brooklyn based filmmaker and actor. He studied at Emerson College in both fields and has appeared in several short films, starred in Stone Broke, a web series about student loan debt, and made an cameo appearance in the breakout independent feature, Funeral Kings.

Reggie specializes in screenwriting and music videos and is currently working on a feature length documentary about black identity. Reggie also co-coordinates a group call Black Film Space which hosts events geared towards filmmakers of the African diaspora.

His long term goal is to write, direct and act in feature films. To find out more about Reggie and his projects, log on to http://www.reggiewilliams.me.

ARTHUR WOO

Arthur Woo is an NYC based cinematographer. His ongoing study of lighting techniques, composition, color theory, camera movement, and other cinematic techniques allows him to plan, advise, and shoot for some of the most well known brands in the world. Clients include L'Oreal, Maybelline, Estee Lauder, MAC, Prada, DKNY, Cartier, Armani Exchange, J. Crew, Glamour, Lancome, Carolina Herrera, Refinery 29 and much more!

PRODUCER

Shurize Richards is a recent college graduate from the Fashion Institute of Technology and is currently a Marketing Associate for a National Non-Profit Organization. She assists One Scribe Media in many aspects of production as needed to ensure the success of the project. She is also an aspiring entrepreneur, producer and director.

PRODUCER

Del-Ann Henry is a Brooklyn native and is a graduate of Stonybrook University. Her years of experience in the publishing industry developed Del's ability to evaluate manuscripts, screenplays and other written material from creative professionals. She is an avid reader, television viewer and filmmaker. Del currently lives in Queens, NY and works as an Executive Assistant at a major fashion brand.