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After receiving the Best Documentary award at the Hollywood International Diversity Film Festival in February, Portland filmmaker Jordan Thierry’s documentary Grandma’s Roses will have its Portland premiere 2:30 pm Friday, March 18, at the Portland Art Museum.
“There’s a radical honesty and warmth about Grandma’s Roses,” states professor Nesha Savage of San Diego City College in a press release. “The documentary did a great job of showing how Black women are programmed to deny their pain, sickness and feelings of vulnerability in order to be a pillar of strength for their families and community.”
Grandma’s Roses is the second feature from Thierry, who was raised in the Portland area, graduated from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and previously directed The Black Fatherhood Project, an exploration of fatherhood in Black America.
For the new film, Thierry looked to his grandmother, who recently passed away, for inspiration, traveling across the country to conduct interviews exploring the concept of grandmothers as the centerpieces of family life.
“I made this film in tribute to my grandmother and others like her,” said Thierry. “I hope this film will spark conversations with audiences that deepen appreciation for the leadership of women and challenge the root expectations we have for them in our lives.”
Grandma’s Roses was produced by the multimedia production company Dream Chase Media, where Thierry serves as creative director. In a statement posted on the company’s website, Thierry offered further explanation of how his grandmother influenced the film.
“My grandma certainly seemed superhuman to me, at least,” Thierry wrote. “This was a woman who, through her wit and charm, convinced a white banker to give his first home loan to a Black family when all the other banks in town wouldn’t. She protested and marched for civil rights in a town that was so small such acts put one’s livelihood at risk.”
Despite his devotion to his grandmother, Thierry wanted the film to be bigger than one person.
“As special as my grandmother is to me, I know her story is not unique,” he wrote. “Her life is analogous to the lives of millions of women across the continent, who we call our mothers, aunties, grandmothers, wives, partners and more.”
The premiere of Grandma’s Roses will be hosted by Open Signal Labs, a fellowship initiative of Open Signal created to support local Black filmmakers (Thierry is a 2020 Open Signal Labs fellow). Thierry will participate in a Q-and-A after the event.
Tickets, which are free, can be found at grandmasfilm.com. Tickets to virtual screenings are also available. The in-person screening will be held at the NW Film Center’s (oh, all right: PAM CUT’s) Whitsell Auditorium.